


Maybe it's time for the universe to have a reset

by diacritical



Series: Universe [1]
Category: Big Bang Theory
Genre: Adoption, Casual Sex, Community: bigbangbigbang, Depression, F/M, Homelessness, Infidelity, M/M, Original Character(s), Recreational Drug Use, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-30
Updated: 2012-09-30
Packaged: 2017-11-15 09:05:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 36,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/525592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/diacritical/pseuds/diacritical
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Initially inspired by the prompt "Just... just someone love him. Hug him. Make him happy. With or without Zoloft." The story of Stuart's life took on a life of it's own. Leonard and Stuart have something of a slowly developing relationship made of equal parts restrained contentment and frustrating detachment. Or: "When I look back and think about times I was really unconditionally happy, and it wasn't quickly marred by my ability to make exactly the wrong choice at every intersection, it was 1993. And then, maybe last Thursday."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to my beta, who lacks on online persona, for enduring months of me babbling about this, and always providing great ideas. Thanks to my artist Jenni_Snake who made me some awesome cover art:  
> [](http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8452/8012700608_7f21f9e7d6_z.jpg)

His first reaction when he found out the Comics Center of Pasadena was for sale was that for all he wanted to start doing something _fun_ with his life, he didn't want to be anywhere near LA. The Comics Center of Albuquerque? Sure! The Comics Center of Des Moines? Rock on! The Comix Center of Biloxi? Okay, Biloxi was a long shot, he did have some standards. But Pasadena? Pasadena was very close to LA. 

But on a very hot July night in 2003, he ran into his old roommate Seth outside the convention center in San Diego, and he was pulled past the roped lines and up to the rooftop party, and found himself smoking a cigar with Wil Wheaton. Stuart checked himself back a few times, that it wasn't some absurd acid trip (with remarkably few pretty colors compared to what he was used to). 

"What, the Comics Center is for sale? I LOVE that place! I'd hate to see it close, even if it could use a little fresh blood. And paint, could definitely use some paint." Stuart sat back, convinced it had to be a dream, he was not discussing comic book stores with Wil Wheaton. 

"Neil! Neil, come over and tell this guy that owning a comic book store would be awesome. This great store is for sale because the owner is retiring, and this guy is thinking of buying it."

'Neil Gaiman is speaking to me. Neil Fucking Gaiman is saying words to me,' Stuart's mind was doing flips. He should probably focus in a little more. 'Nope, just the mere fact that Neil Gaiman is speaking directly in my direction.'

(Stuart kicked himself later for letting his inner nerd freak out. He had absolutely no idea what Neil Gaiman had said to him. He wondered if Neil Gaiman was telling him that the voice in his gut saying that moving back to LA was a terrible idea was right.)

August of 2003 was the only time Stuart would ever consider his MBA useful. He and Dave split up Solartecnixs, and Stuart walked out of their makeshift office with the largest check he'd ever hold in his hand at one time (he briefly contemplating asking for the money in singles, and rolling around in it for a while). In turn he wrote two new checks: to the former owner of the Comics Center, along with the contract dissolving the retiree of stake in the business, and one to Subaru of Sunnyvale, for the one and only new car he would ever own.

By the last week of August of 2003 the Comics Center of Pasadena had brown paper taped over the windows with a sign about getting a face lift while Stuart pulled the old shelves off the wall, drilled shiny chrome racks to replace them, swapping the musty blue paint for a candy apple green.


	2. Chapter 1

_ERROR: Invalid device input. Please connect the device to the port and try again._

Stuart let out a deep sigh and silently cursed the printer. His old printer had been on its last legs for months and he'd finally been able to buy a new one … that didn't want to talk to his equally old computer. He cracked his knuckles and crawled back under the desk to try and see if there was a different place he should attach the computer to the printer. He heard the door rattle and tried to stand up, hitting the corner of his head on the shelf.

"Crap!"

"Hey Stuart, good to see you too," Leonard said with a wry smile. Stuart wasn't used to seeing the guys alone. It was like Leonard shouldn't exist without Sheldon, Howard and Raj.

"No! Sorry! I was trying to fix the printer and I hit my head." He rubbed the edge of his hairline for emphasis. Couldn't have people thinking he wasn't happy to have them in the store. "Are you looking for anything in particular today?"

"Nah, I just needed to take a walk. Something I was working on blew up."

"Figuratively you mean?"

"No, literally. The fire department had to come. The department chair is pretty mad."

Stuart nodded, somewhat wary that his customers could inadvertently set a building on fire. It did explain the soot on Leonard's coat.

"Do you want me to take a look at your printer? That probably can't explode, right?"

"No, I suppose not," Stuart said with a nervous laugh, stepping out from behind the counter. "But if it does, I'm sending you the bill."

"This is a really nice printer," Leonard said, kneeling down to reconnect some cables. "Are things turning around? I know you've been having a hard time lately…"

"Actually, things are going pretty well. I got this small business loan, and I decided to try selling some old back issues that weren't moving in the store, so I set up a web store, and bought some advertising on a couple gaming forums, and I've already sold enough issues to be able to pay up some old accounts and buy this new printer."

"Wow, that's great," Leonard dusted off his hands. Stuart made a mental note to Swiffer behind the counter more often. "I think I found the problem, looks like you had it set as a network printer, not a local printer." He hit the test print button and the printer started churning.

"Thanks. I really appreciate your help. I was beginning to worry that the computer was too old to work with a new printer." 

"It's no problem. Like I said, it's not going to explode." Leonard haphazardly played with the trinkets Stuart kept next to the register. "Do you know of anything that's good for kids, and in Chinese? My niece and nephew are 6 are 4, and my sister has them in a bilingual program, and maybe I can try to turn them onto the geeky things in life young."

"Manhua … I don't think so. I have an English translation of some Yotsuba books, and there might be a Chinese translation out, too." Stuart skimmed the kids rack and pulled out a sample. 

"Cute," Leonard said, flipping through the pages, "Do you have anything a little more complex? Apparently they're reading at an 11th and 9th grade level."

Stuart opened his mouth to say something, but then just frowned. 

"Exactly."

"Maybe Sunshine Sketch, it's manga, but I can see if there's a Chinese translation available," Stuart started skimming the shelf again, and handed Leonard a copy to review. Leonard tried to look thoughtful, but Stuart could tell this wasn't going to fit the bill either. 

"Oh, maybe West Wing, it's not a serial, but it's inspired by a play, so it's sort of educational," Stuart kept scanning, ever hopeful to find something, anything, to sell. "Crap, I think that was in one of the boxes I moved to my apartment when I moved out of the backroom. If you want to look over it, I can bring it in with me, or if you want to come over and take a look or whatever." He hoped the desperation wasn't coming across too strongly. 

"Sure," Leonard shrugged, "Whatever works best for you."

"Okay," Stuart grabbed a scrap of paper and scribbled down his address. "The store closes at 8 tonight, so I'm home by 8:30 or so."

*

Stuart peddled furiously down the street. Captain Sweatpants had been in a chatty mood that night. Stuart never wanted to kick people out when they might buy something, but also needed to grow a backbone with the regulars who were using the store as their own little retreat from their real life problems. 

His car had been towed by the city one night during his stint living in the store, when he forgot to move it in time and the police deemed it abandoned. It cost $300 to get it back ("borrowed" from his sister), and he'd sold it to a guy with a sketchy looking garage, canceled the insurance policy, and bought a used bike and a case of canned tuna and a palette of freeze dried noodles, and used the rest to try and pay up some business accounts so he could order new inventory. He'd found a studio apartment a few miles from the store, uphill on the way to work, but a fairly easy coast downhill on the way home. 

A fairly easy coast when he wasn't late for a meeting where he might actually make some money for the day. As he rounded the corner he could see Leonard fiddling with his iPhone. 

"Hey, hope you haven't been waiting long," Stuart said breathlessly, when he pulled to a stop. "Captain—Ian," Stuart caught himself, don't make fun of one customer in front of another customer, he reminded himself. "—had some thoughts about Wonder Woman he wanted to share."

"Huh? Oh hey, no. Just a few minutes. What's with the bike?"

Stuart shrugged, "It's only a mile and a half to the store. Three-quarters of a mile to the grocery store. Didn't seem worthwhile to keep paying taxes and insurance and gas and all that." He'd gotten used to the strange looks around town, even with the near perfect weather (compared to growing up in Tacoma with twice as much rain, and going to college in Rhode Island, with snowy winters) everyone drove everywhere. 

Leonard looked skeptical. Stuart shrugged again, and locked the bike to a street sign and unlocked the front door.

Inside the apartment, Stuart shuffled through a stack of comics and graphic novels on his coffee table-slash-nightstand-slash-dining room table. He was so used to being alone he didn't realize how crowded it was to have another person in there. Or how messy the place must look. Artistic chaos, he preferred to think.

"It's great that you have a new apartment," Leonard said, idly leaning against the drafting table in the corner. "Living in the store had to be hard."

"Well, it really shortened my commuting time. But yeah, now that I'm moving back issues I can get some new merchandise and actually making a little profit. If this keeps up, I'll be able to afford to bring in Dale on more than just a few special occasions."

"Good for you." Stuart continued to sort through the boxes. Listening to people tell him it was so great how his life was turning around was probably the most frustrating part of actually turning things around. He knew perfectly well that everyone else knew how bad things had gotten for him, but hearing complements on turning it around just reminded him – how bad it was, how easy it would be to fall down that whole again, how obvious it was… 

"And it looks like you've pulled out some of your art stuff," Leonard continued, looking at some of the drawings on the desk and hanging on the magnet board he'd hung on the wall.

"Oh, that, yeah, one of my friends from art school is trying to start a new gallery and asked me if I could contribute a few things to set the tone. I'd had some old sketches kicking around, and finally got motivated to put the pen to the paper." Stuart turned his attention to a stack of books on the bookshelf. He was going to feel really, really stupid if Leonard had come all the way over, and couldn't find the book.

"That sounds … cool. Things seem to be going pretty well for you - have you considered buying lotto tickets? I think it could be your week…"

"Here it is! History of West Wing," he proudly held up the book, and ignoring Leonard's joke. 

Leonard took a cursory flip through the book. "It looks good. And you can order it in Chinese?"

Stuart nodded, and started booting up his laptop. "I'll place the order tonight, and it should be in by Friday. I'll give you a call."

"Thanks. Could I buy this copy, too? Or is this your personal copy? My sister might like to know what it is they're reading, so she can check their comprehension and all."

"Sure, of course you can buy that one," Stuart tried to sound disconnected. 'You can buy anything you see in this apartment so that I keep paying for internet,' he thought to himself.

Leonard reached to pull out his wallet, and knocked a stack of old sketchbooks off the chair by the drafting table. Maybe it wasn't artistic chaos, maybe it was all a precariously balanced sty after all.

"Sorry about that, let me help you clean up." Leonard knelt down to pick up the papers that had fallen from between the pages. "Who's this?" he asked, picking up one book that had fallen open to a page with a nearly naked male torso. He started to flip through a few pages, and quickly slammed the book shut when he ran into the fully naked man.

"Oh, yeah, Scott. That was a while ago."

"Right, what's it called, life models or whatever. Right, art school, human form and all."

"Figure drawing. Actually, he's the one who convinced me to move to California. We knew each other in Rhode Island, and he was going to UCLA for law school and convinced me sunshine would be nice." 

"A lawyer artist?" Leonard looked confused. "Didn't you go to art school?"

"RISD shares a campus with Brown, he was a political science major."

"Oh, right, yeah, of course," Leonard mumbled. He put the book back in the stack, delicately, almost like he was afraid of holding a naked man, even if only on paper, and paid Stuart for the book, and went on his way. Motivated to clean up a little bit, Stuart was left to revise his little head profile of Leonard. He'd figured that Leonard must be getting _something_ from Sheldon to keep putting up with him after all that time. When Stuart found out how jealous Leonard had been of him for going out with Penny that it confirmed that they weren't a couple (later, when Sheldon had tried to audition Stuart as a new friend and he really saw the inside of their apartment, he figured out what it was that Leonard was getting from Sheldon).

*

Leonard dropped by Friday at lunch to pick up the book. They saw each other again Wednesday night, for new comic book night although they didn't chat much beyond a cursory nod and pleasantries when Stuart rang up Leonard's purchases. He dropped by during the day, without the rest of the group a few times, to pick up a plush toy for his brother's new baby, to drop off a loaf of sourdough after Sheldon had decided to start a sourdough colony, and was giving away bread, to let Stuart know the kids had enjoyed the History of West Wing, and wondered if there was something else similar. 

The midday chats (and midday sales, and free food) weren't unwelcome, although ever the pessimist, he couldn't help but wonder if it was all an elaborate ploy to start getting a discount on special orders. Still, as the clock ticked past 2, he started wondering if Leonard was going to come in that day. He flipped through a preview copy of a new graphic novel from an independent publishing start up, but his mind drifted off. He'd been thinking about inviting Leonard (and, probably by default the rest of his friends) to come to his friend's new gallery opening. On the one hand, Leonard seemed friendly enough and had asked about it during one of their little chats, on the other hand, most people he knew from the store weren't big fan of real art. Stuart had been reading the alumni newsletter behind the counter one day, and Lonely Larry had asked how you tell the difference between modern art, and a toddler throwing things at a canvas. Still, when Leonard did show up Stuart decided to jump in, if in the most awkward and convoluted way possible. 

"So um, hey – my friend's gallery, the one I was helping out, is opening on Thursday. You should come check it out, everyone. You know, if you want, or if other people want to come. I think there's free wine. Probably cheap wine, but free wine. And maybe a cheese tray."

"That sounds like fun," Leonard said, "Not the cheese part, with the lactose. But wine, and art. That's cool."

"Really?" Stuart hadn't expected him to say yes. 

"Yeah, it sounds fun," Leonard assured him, "Could you write down the address for me?"

"Yeah, of course. Great! Alright! I'll see you there then."

*

Stuart nervously fiddled with the straw in his rocks glass. Cranberry juice and ginger ale, he didn't seem to have the metabolism he used to, and the last thing he needed was to get drunk at a show. Even if he was only doing it for Nia. He'd been there the night before, helping her hang the last works on the walls, moving the rented furniture to get people moving through the different rooms, confirming the catering, and listening to her prattle on about the contracts and her lease. When he realized he'd missed the last train back to Pasadena, she'd let him crash on her couch. They'd been up most of the night talking about becoming sell outs and worrying more about the bottom line and business expenses than actually making art.

Two critics from newspapers dropped by early to look around and ask a few questions for reviews in the weekend arts column. After that there was a slow but steady stream of hipsters and bit part actors and extras wandering through. Stuart shook hands with as many people as he could, tried to make small talk. He'd seen a half a dozen former classmates, and wondered when everyone had moved to LA.

It was a little after 8 when he saw Leonard, Sheldon, Amy, Howard, Bernadette, Raj, and Penny show up. He hadn't really expected all of them, West Hollywood was a pain to drive to, much less at the tail end of rush hour. Getting two cars worth of people to drive all the way across town was something of a feat. 

Immediately on their heels was Scott. Scott and his new husband. Scott and his new husband and their newly adopted baby. Damn small circles of friends. 

"Hey, Stuart!" Leonard smiled and walked over, the rest of the group waved a bit, then headed for the makeshift bar, clearly Leonard had mentioned the free wine and cheese.

"Stu! Stu Bloom!" Scott's ears had perked up and he scanned the room and locked in on Stuart. He ushered his new husband up, nearly shoving Leonard out of the way. Stuart tried to shake hands, and Scott pulled him in for a hug. Stuart looked over Scott's shoulder and saw Leonard nod, and wander off to look at some of the other little rooms.

"Richard, this is my old friend Stu! Stu, this is Richard and this little angel is Daphne," he said pointing to the sleeping baby strapped to Richard's chest. Scott apparently forgot that Stuart had met Richard several years prior, when Richard oh-so-helpfully carried Stuart's things to the moving van, when it turned out, contrary to what he'd been saying for two years, Scott totally believed in hook-ups.

Stuart tried to force out a smile and coo over the sleeping baby. They made small talk (Scott was just promoted to senior partner at his firm, Richard just had his second novel published and it was being optioned for a movie). Finally Stuart excused himself and slid off to the bar to get a glass of wine. Screw professionalism.

He ran into Leonard and Sheldon arguing about coming to the gallery versus playing Halo, and whether the strategic planning in MMORPGs was more conducive to building neural circuits than looking at art. 

"Thanks for coming guys," Stuart interjected, "I know it's not your thing, but it's nice to have a good turnout for a new gallery. I'm sure my friend Nia really appreciates it, too." 

"Sheldon, I think I saw Amy and Bernadette in the far room, looking at some abstract paintings and trying to decide if the pictures looked like different viruses under an electron microscope. Maybe you should go weigh in," Leonard prompted. Sheldon shook his head dismissively, but did head off.

"I am serious," Stuart said to Leonard, "It's great you all came." 

Leonard shrugged, "It's fun to do different things now and then. Sheldon tries to schedule 'Anything Can Happen Thursday,' once a month, he put up a fight today, because that isn't until next Thursday. I tried to explain that the opening was tonight, but he didn't care. So we agreed on a one time motion to swap Anything Can Happen Thursday to today, and next Thursday will be Halo night."

Stuart peeked around the corner of the floating wall that divided the space, Scott and Richard had moved on. "I should get back to my post," Stuart said, "We're supposed to stay with the works so that if people have questions we can come up with bullshit answers about process and motivation or whatever.

Leonard followed along. "Okay, I'll play. What was your motivation for this one?" 

"Ah, one from my 'Boyfriend Being Sultry While Doing Mundane Things,' series," Stuart laughed. He'd tried to erase a couple of features and make them more generic, but in the end, still a picture of Scott, looking chiseled and classic drinking a cup of coffee.

"Isn't this the guy with the baby? That kept calling you Stu?" Leonard asked. Stuart wondered if Leonard associated him with the sketchbook pictures, too, and was just too bashful to say anything.

"Yeah," Stuart sighed and pursed his lips. 

Nia came over to break the awkward tension. "Stewie! Yay! I knew I called you for a reason! Scott and Richard just bought one of your drawings! You're my first sale!" She put the sold sticker over the edge of the information tag below the frame. "Here, take a picture!" She said, shoving her camera in Leonard's hands, and throwing her arms around Stuart.

"Way to go Stuart!" Leonard said from behind the viewfinder.

"Eh, he's a narcissist," Stuart shrugged, "I'm sure he just wants to look at himself drinking his perfect cup of coffee with his perfect husband and their perfect baby in their perfect condo."

Nia shrugged, and walked off, almost skipping with excitement.

"It's still awesome to sell something," Leonard tried to say helpfully, "Even if he is a jerk."

"Stu!" Scott's voice rang out. Crap, Stuart had hoped they were gone. Now he was holding the baby, and Richard was carrying the diaper bag. "We have to leave, someone's getting fussy, but I had to say good-bye. We just bought this drawing you did of me!" Scott pointed helpfully. "Anyway, we should all get together for dinner some time! It's been too long, and I've always figured you would have burned all the pictures of me, but you didn't! I was probably thinking it was so much worse in my head. Anyway, next time you're downtown? Or we're in Pasadena!" He pressed his card into Stuart's hand and planted a kiss on Stuart's cheek.

Stuart smiled politely until they were out the door, and then ripped up the card in his hand.

"Wait, he was _your_ boyfriend?" Leonard looked confused. "I thought you meant like, general boyfriends being sultry."

Stuart looked at him, incredulous that Leonard was just figuring that out. "Yeah. I also have the series 'Boyfriend Doing Lots of Nice Things to Cover Up the Fact That He's Sleeping with Other People,'" Stuart laughed bitterly and finished his wine. 

"I didn't know you were – I mean you've said you had girlfriends. And you went out with Penny. And Amy!"

Stuart tried to shrug it off, this wasn't really the place he wanted to discuss his place on a sexuality spectrum.

"Well, it's been a long time, I'm not even sure I qualify anymore. Is this really the place for this?" Stuart stammered, looking at his shoes. An uneasy silence settled between them.

Mercifully, Sheldon came back with Amy and Penny in tow, demanding to return to the safe haven of Pasadena and a game on an xbox that featured art, and they pulled Leonard off before things could get any more awkward.


	3. Los Angeles

He'd never really bothered to try and label his own sexuality. Hormones ran fast and deep around the studios, and sex was just another way to blow off some steam after a crit. He'd been at a party freshman year, was stoned out of his mind when a guy offered him a blow job, and in his mellowed state he didn't really see the difference in whose mouth was sucking on him. After words it just seemed impolite not to reciprocate with at least a hand job. It turned out to be a nice change from the girls he'd gotten to third base with before – a little faster, a little easier, and, if you were quick with a tissue, much less messy.

From then, he liked to think gender didn't matter to him, that it was more about the _person_ he was in bed with. "You're very new age," his friend Beth laughed when he told her his new philosophy while they sprawled out on the grass in the back yard with a couple of acid squares and watching the stars sparkle.

And so it didn't seem so strange when Scott pulled him into bed when they'd stumbled home drunk from a pub crawl after finals two years later (ending his semester of celibacy when Cassie had been pregnant, and he started to question the efficacy of all condoms). It did get a little strange when Scott's parents, a straight laced lawyer and judge from Georgia, came to town and the four of them had gone to dinner before the mock trial weekend that kicked off Spring Break. Not because his parents were unaccepting or hostile at the _gay_ relationship, more that they were hostile at the idea of the _artist_ relationship. 

"How long do you expect it will take to be able to be self-sufficient from the profits from your art??"

"Do you expect your parents to support you your whole life?"

"Have you considered getting a real job, and doing this art thing on the side?"

"What sort of profit margin do you have on a painting? Do you even know what a profit margin is?"

*

Scott followed him into his bedroom.

"I'm sorry, I'm just not in the mood after the interrogation from your parents," Stu said, pulling off his tee shirt and jeans and falling into bed. 

"What, I can't be absurdly twee and snuggle with my boyfriend?" Scott said, lying beside him and resting his chin on Stu's shoulder, peppering his jaw with light kisses.

"Since when am I your boyfriend?"

Scott pulled back, "Errr, I'm sorry, I thought since we were … ya know. Crap, are you offended I told my parents?"

"No, nothing like that… I just haven't been someone's boyfriend since like, high school. Are we supposed to have some conversation about this?"

They stared at each other for a minute, until Stu broke the tension with a laugh, "Wow, this is a ridiculous conversation."

"Kinda, yeah," Scott smiled and kissed Stu's chest, "I mean, I guess we could be super officious and go down to the health center and get tested for STDs, and then throw out the box of condoms."

Stu chuckled, "That sounds like the _least_ sexy date I can possibly imagine."

Scott wiggled his way up and whispered in Stu's ear.

"Well, yes, there's doing _that_ , and that would be pretty sexy, you're right. It's a date."

*

"Move to LA with me."

Stu rolled over from his back to his belly and propped himself up on his elbows and looked at his partner. For his final spring break before real life kicked in ("Unless I become an art teacher!" he'd pointed out. "You'd be a terrible art teacher," his mom reminded him, "Which makes this your last spring break."), his parents had got him the tickets to France, and told him to use his own savings for everything else. Scott had scraped up enough to join him (Scott's parents, Stuart guessed, when Scott booked a private room at a not-too-scary hostel), and they'd spent the week meandering the Louvre, gorging themselves on crepes, getting lost on a train trying to get to Versailles, and having some pretty mind-blowing sex (and possibly irritating the girls on the other side of the thin walls; his Bulgarian was not so good, so perhaps the girls were congratulating them for … yeah, probably irritated).

"Say what now?"

"After graduation, let's move to LA together. I'll be at UCLA, and you can do art anywhere. I mean, that's the great thing about it, right? You aren't tied to one job market."

Stu flashed back to his grandfather asking him why he needed to go to an art school: drawing was drawing, it wasn't like you could learn to draw, he'd said, you're good at it, so you're going to pay money to have people tell you that you're good at it? And now, almost six years after he'd first said he was going to go to art school, only now he was going to have to explain, justify graduate school. Sure, there were galleries in LA, but that didn't compare to going and studying the great painters, looking at original works _in_ Florence. But maybe his grandfather had been right, maybe you have to get out there and _do_ work, rather than just learn about doing work. Had Picasso gone to grad school? Dali? 

"Um, way to leave me hanging?" Scott's voice broke his train of thought.

Stu smiled. "Sorry, distracted at the thought of how sexy you'll be with a tan," he said, "I'd love that. I love you." Scott pulled him in close for a deep kiss.

He'd been holding his post-graduation plans close to his chest for most of the year. He hadn't told anyone (except the professors he'd asked for recommendations) about the applications to grad school. He'd been accepted everywhere he'd applied, and had declined all but the last one, not because it was his favorite or the best or any other logical reason, but it seemed like the best adventure. When they landed back in Providence, Stu pulled the offer letter from Accademia di Brera and signed under "Decline." It was a silly idea anyway, his Italian was horrible. LA would be different, but an adventure none the less.

*

It took about a month for Stu to feel that LA had chewed him up and spit him out on his ass. Sure, RISD had the best of the best, and he was used to the competition, but it seemed like coffee shop, every gallery, every bookstore had people booked for the next few months, even years sometimes. Looking around, he cringed at some of the shoddy work – remembering a particularly traumatic studio session when the professor screamed at him for wasting ink while trying to add a splatter detail (it was a bizarre counterbalance to another professor telling him to go ahead and waste paint and try new things). Scott had been helpful for the first two weeks, trying to give Stu pep talks when he got home from another day of showing off his portfolio, but after his classes started he almost immediately started hitting up the library after class, and getting home later and later each night.

Feeling particularly dejected, he unlocked the door to the walkup apartment, Stu was immediately confronted from boisterous laughter from the dining room. He peaked around the corner and saw Scott and several presumably classmates, surrounded by books and notepads, but still pointing at each other and laughing at some incomprehensible legal jokes they were telling each other.

He just watched them for a minute, and wondered why Scott was with him in the first place. Scott usually looked like he'd just stepped off the pages of a j.Crew catalogue, and had a natural way to draw people into conversation. Stu looked like he might not have changed his clothes for three days, and had been told he looked like a Simpsons character. While Scott always seemed appreciative of his efforts, Stu doubted he was any sort of sex god. So he was left leaning against the wall wondering what this smart preppy guy was doing with him.

A minute later Scott glanced over and saw Stu lurking by the door.

"Stu! Everyone, this is my boyfriend, Stu," Scott said, pointing at the door. Stu smiled, and gave a little wave. 

"So, you're an artist," one of the girls at the table said, "that's so cool! I can't even draw stick figures." Stuart did not mention that people with about the same skill set seemed to be doing fine in galleries all over the city.

*

In Tacoma the drizzle would pick up shortly after school started, lessening the blow to have to go back inside. In Providence, there was always a bet as to whether or not it would have snowed by Halloween. In LA, the seasons were marked by decorations in stores and banners on light posts. When stores started to put up plastic pine roping and Christmas decorations Stu had to wonder if it was November, or still October – maybe the stores were just getting an early start. But otherwise, the sun was still out, the temperatures were still warm. Stu packed up his canvases and prints from his little corner of the boardwalk and headed for the bus stop to get back home. Another day, another handful of oceanscapes for tourists.

He found Scott at home, hours earlier than normal. Typically he was at the library until midnight, sometimes later, saying he didn't want to come home to ignore Stu. Instead he stayed away, and the effect was the same. 

"Do you have anything that isn't covered in paint splatter and chemical burns?" he didn't even pull his head out of the closet.

"Um, no, actually, I don't think so. Why?"

"Well, you know how we decided to stay in LA for Thanksgiving, rather than trying to fight crowds at the airports?"

That was not the recollection Stu had of the conversation, so much as Scott didn't want to be torn away from his books and said he wouldn't be going anywhere. Stu's credit cards were all completely maxed out from moving across the country, and selling art on the boardwalk was less profitable than he'd initially hoped, and he was too proud to ask his parents to buy him a ticket. They would have, of course, they offered, but Stu lied and said that he and Scott were planning an intimate pre-finals dinner. He'd briefly considered that it wasn't a lie, that he would make Scott dinner, except Scott excitedly announced that the law library would be open all weekend, and he couldn't wait to get some reading done.

"Sure," Stu responded, kicking off his sandals and unloading his bag.

"Well, I told one of my professors, and she said she hosts a dinner for all the L1s that are staying in the city, and so we have to go now, but you can't show up at my professor's house in ripped jeans."

"Why do we have to go, you said you wanted to go to the library?"

"I know, but I want her to write a recommendation for me for a job this summer, so I need to make her like me! Didn't you have real shirts before? Have you only ever owned tee shirts?"

"Couldn't you make her like you by doing well in classes? And we could stay home and drink wine and feed each other fish sticks."

"I'm trying to get into international politics! Schmoozing is part of the deal. I'm going to leave you my credit card tomorrow, can you go buy a decent outfit, please? Besides, maybe a better outfit would help you get your foot in the door in some galleries, you know?"

"Sure," Stu said mindlessly, watching Scott pile the stack of tee shirts back in the closet. 

*

"Professor Miller, this is my partner Stuart," Scott said, handing the bottle of wine to their host. The wine that had cost almost as much as rent - he'd almost had a heart attack when he saw the receipt. When Scott said it was a gift from his parents, Stu had to wonder why they couldn't send money for food, not just money to impress other people. 

"What's with the 'Stuart?'" he asked, as soon as the host was out of earshot.

"It's just more professional, that's all," Scott said, "First impressions are really important in law, and I want to seem like I'm more professional than the others."

"Me wearing a tie and going by Stuart is going to help you get a job?" Stu cast an incredulous glance Scott.

"It can't hurt, that's all I'm saying." 

In the end, _Stuart_ was the only one who got a job out of Thanksgiving dinner, when one of the other students and his wife hired him to paint a mural on the wall of the nursery they were setting up for their baby, due in a few months. Scott said he was thrilled all the way to the car, but when the time came, and Stu actually came home with paint drips and smelling of paint thinner (and a phone number for another couple that wanted a mural), Scott pursed his lips and headed for the library without a word.

*

The last Friday before spring break Scott got the offer letter for a different internship than he'd hoped for, but his mood turned. He only spent twelve hours a day at the library, not eighteen, he asked how Stuart's work was going, they had lazed in bed for an hour on a Tuesday morning, wide awake, but kissing, and touching, and just being together. 

"Let's go on a comic book crawl this weekend, hit every comic store between here and Thousand Oaks! Or Santa Barbara!" Scott set a plate of eggs benedict down in front of Stuart. 

Stuart looked up from his sketchbook, "Santa Barbara? You want to drive 90 miles one way to look at comic books?"

"Well, you said there was a shop you wanted to see, and I feel good about having everything together for going back to class next week, and it would be a fun to spend a weekend away, maybe see if we can find a hotel on the beach and watch the sunset and have some of that wild and crazy sex that we used to in college? Oh, we could find a crêperie, and it would be just like spring break last year!"

"You're going to bring a textbook and study in the car, aren't you?" Stuart squinted at Scott, like he'd been abducted by aliens, and Stuart was finally catching on. 

"No!" Scott mocked indignation at the idea, "There's a ton of great sci-fi slated for release this summer, and I want to get caught up on pop culture, that way when we go to San Diego this summer I don't seem like I've been living in the library all year."

"Well, you have been living in the library all year," Stuart pointed out, taking a bite of the eggs. 

"True, true," Scott smiled, "But come on, isn't that why I have you, to keep me grounded in the real world?" 

*

"We should go to Hawaii! Soon! Before the bigots win!" Stuart looked up from his sketchbook and wondered if Scott had seriously asked him to get married. Not that he hadn't started to consider it, moving across the country with him, and now listening to Scott rant at the nightly news about the ongoing legal saga in Hawaii certainly brought marriage to the forefront of his mind.

"What good was it to go to Hawaii and get married if other states weren't going to recognize it anyway?" Stuart asked, "Why not just set up power of attorney and living wills and all that?"

"Because straight people don't have to do all that, is why! Because they can drunkenly get married in Vegas and boom, get insurance benefits at work, but we have to show that we've been living together at least two years and have at least one joint bank account if I want to add you to my health plan at work."

"You're going to be an intern and you don't get paid, much less benefits, and it doesn't matter if we go to Hawaii tomorrow, we still won't be married in California." 

"You're missing my point!"

Maybe it was a proposal. 

*

He started trying to plant little questions, trying to make sure Scott wasn't just in favor of marriage in general. 

"Of course I think you're 'the one,'" Scott said when Stuart's questions got a little too overt one Wednesday night (the one hour Stuart had scheduled for TV together, Law & Order, convincing Scott it was almost like studying). "Oh, please don't become one of those needy where-are-we-going-you-love-your-textbooks-more-than-me types. One of the guys in my class is on the verge of divorce. I can't handle that with a month until exams. Please just keep being my super awesome boyfriend and know that I really love you even if I forget to say it, or show it. But school, it's like, I have to do well so that I can take care of us--" 

Stuart stopped him with a quick kiss, "I know. Forget I said anything. Just watch TV."

Stuart spent a chunk of the next month finding a studio he could rent by the hour and putting the semester of metalwork to good use. He had the plan all worked out, Scott's last final exam of the year was Thursday morning, he'd be home around lunch time and crash into bed for about 20 hours (if winter exams were any indication) – giving Stuart plenty of time to make a Friday morning brunch. He had a whole speech ready and rehearsed, about not being able to legislate love, about supporting each other, about being together.

Everything was going according to plan, until he realized he was out of eggs (he briefly wondered if the fact that he'd gone through 12 eggs and a pound of butter, and still needed more wasn't a bad sign. Sure, one batch of muffin batter had gone in the trash when the shell crumbled in his hand, but still…). Easy enough, Scott was still sleeping, he'd take the car keys, run to the store and be back in no time. 

He grabbed Scott's backpack, discarded on the floor, as he'd walked in the previous day, he fished through the front pocket, and stopped.

*

"Hey buddy, do I smell muffins?" Scott finally emerged from the bedroom rubbing his eyes, "That's so sweet of you."

Stuart sat silently at the table, his back to Scott. 

"What's going on?" 

"Why do you have condoms in your backpack?"

"Wh—why are you going through my backpack?" 

"I was looking for the car keys to go to the store to get eggs to make you a post-exams brunch. Why do you have condoms in your backpack?"

"They were um, giving them away at school, for safe sex awareness."

"Why did you take them?"

"I told you, people were just giving them away!"

"Right, but WE don't use them, WE went and got tested because WE stopped having sex with other people."

Scott stared at the wall just beyond Stuart's head.

Stuart broke the silence "How long have you been fucking other people behind my back?"

"It's not like that!"

"But you are having sex with other people?"

"No, not really! I mean, sometimes I get blow jobs and once in a while—"

"Oh my God, you did not just say that blow jobs aren't sex!" Stuart cut him off. He wasn't sure he wanted to hear what happened _once in a while._

"Stuart! I mean, I ALWAYS use condoms, for everything! You shouldn't worry."

"You are unbelievable! You're screwing around behind my back, and your justification is that I shouldn't worry because you used condoms? Gee, that's so considerate of you, I don't have to worry about syphilis or AIDS, just that the guy I thought loved me doesn't love me as much as I loved him."

"Stu-" Scott started, but Stuart was standing, heading for the door. Scott tried to stop him, and Stuart pushed him back against wall.

"Don't touch me!"


	4. Chapter 2

Not entirely unexpectedly, Leonard popped into the comic book store on Tuesday at lunchtime. Stuart had been curious if the lunch time visits would continue, given the awkward pause they'd had at the gallery. Coming out to people tended to fall into a couple of well-defined groups, generally unsurprised and supportive people, who then tried to fix him up with all the wrong people, people who were basically indifferent, people who thought there was no such thing as bisexuals and it was all a ploy to get head from as many people as possible, people who were worried that you were hitting on them, and then the small minority who either told him he just needed to meet the right girl, or stomped off for fear of catching the gayness.

"Hey," Leonard said. "I brought you another loaf of sourdough, if you want. Sheldon's feeding his yeast colony some new imported barley, and it's sort of exploding. Metaphorically."

"Thanks," Stuart said. "The last one was really good." It wasn't so different from any other sourdough he'd had, but it was a nice gesture, and even if things were looking up financially, Stuart wasn't one to turn down free food.

"I'm sorry I left on such a weird note at the show," Leonard said. "It probably came off really badly, I just didn't want Sheldon to cause a scene and it looked like it was headed that way."

"No, it's fine. I didn't really want to have that conversation there anyway."

Leonard nodded. "So you … date guys and girls? How does that work? Do you alternate back and forth, or like, date one person of each gender?"

"Um…" Stuart raised an eyebrow. Seriously, who says things like that? "Well, lately I don't really date anyone. But also no. To all of the above. Just … no." 

"That's um, well, I mean … good for you." Stuart stared at Leonard uncomfortably shifting his weight from one foot to the other, wishing he could fast forward to the end of this conversation. "I didn't want you to think I was judging you or anything, I just didn't know."

"It's not something that usually comes up in comic book sales," Stuart said

"Right! Exactly! Anyway, enjoy your bread, and I'll um, I'll see you around!" Leonard left without even a cursory glance at comics. Stuart shook his head. Not awkward at all.

*

Looking at his quarterly tax statement, Stuart decided it was time to stop working on Mondays, sales were up enough to have Dale in one full day a week, in addition to random half days when Stuart had other things to do. Monday was still his slowest day, and it seemed like a good way to ease Dale into more hours. 

Stuart settled down at his desk to work on his newest project, a manga inspired book about the Civil War being written by a friend of a friend, when he realized he'd left his good pencil box at work the previous day. He rooted around in a couple of other boxes, found a crappy #2, and decided to head over to the store and pick it up. It couldn't hurt to make sure that Dale hadn't burned it down or sold off the entire inventory of vintage comics at face value.

He walked in and bumped into Leonard, walking out.

"Hey, Dale said you weren't working today," Leonard said.

"I'm not, I just came to pick up something I left yesterday," Stuart said, as Leonard followed him back into the store. 

"Bossman!" Dale greeted him enthusiastically.

"Hey Dale, did I leave a blue pencil box behind the counter?"

Dale started poking around on the shelf next to the printer. Stuart turned back to Leonard. "Find what you were looking for today?" 

"Oh, yeah, another plush toy for my brother's baby. They said their dog got ahold of the last one." Stuart wondered if he should tell Leonard that was usually a cover story.

"I don't see any pencil box back here," Dale chimed in. 

Stuart frowned, "I wonder where I left it, I can't find it anywhere, and I was using it here yesterday."

"Is it the one on top of the microwave in the back room?"

"Huh?" Stuart looked confused.

"There's a blue box on top of the microwave. But you asked if there was one behind the counter."

Stuart gave him a vexed smile, wondering if there was some new small business version of "Punked!" That he was going to be featured on, and headed to the back room. Leonard followed him.

"I was hoping we could talk," Leonard said quietly, hoping to be out of earshot of Dale. 

"About what?" Stuart asked, dropping the pencil box in his backpack and heading for the door.

"Um …" Leonard stammered until they were outside again, "I feel like it's been kinda weird lately." Stuart shrugged, it was true, but seemed rude to point out.

"Do you want to get a cup of coffee?" Stuart offered. He hadn't planned to stay out, much less buy overpriced coffee at the shop across the street, but Leonard had been extra fidgety lately, and it seemed worthwhile to find out what was bothering him.

They settled into a booth in the back. Leonard silently stared at his cup for a minute, like he was suddenly unsure of what to say now that he had a chance to say it. Stuart decided to jump in.

"So what's up with you? You've been a little weird since finding out I have an ex-boyfriend."

"No I haven't!" That got Leonard to look up.

"Yes you have. What's up with that? Because if this is going to be a conversation about how you're cool with it, I've heard it, and frankly I'd rather you just _act_ cool with it, instead of tell me, but act all jumpy."

"I just don't know a lot of other guys who are relaxed about dating guys and girls. And I hate to say that Sheldon is rubbing off on me, but I guess I'm kind of used to rigidly defined roles for everyone, so when you went out with girls I just figured you were straight, and then you … weren't, and I just don't know anyone who's so relaxed about saying ex-boyfriend and ex-girlfriend in the same sentence. If I tried to say I had a boyfriend in college to anyone I know, I'd get a million questions…" he stared at his cup, clearly hoping Stuart picked up on the implication of the last line.

Stuart nodded. "You never know. They might just get all jumpy around you." Leonard looked up, and Stuart smiled and winked to make sure Leonard picked up on the joke. Leonard relaxed his shoulders and smiled back.

"Would you maybe wanna get some coffee sometime?" Leonard asked, apparently forgetting where they were.

"We’re having coffee now."

"Right. What about a movie? There's an indie theater doing a screening of some old Superman movies on Saturday. We could catch a late show, after the store closes and maybe dinner?"

"Just to be clear, you mean like a date, right? Because your friend Raj asked me if I wanted to go dancing with him, and it turns out he did not mean as a date, and that was a little strange. Less strange than it's been with you, but still strange." 

"Yeah, a date. I mean, I haven't been on date with a guy in a while. Movie and dinner still qualifies as a date, right?"

"As far as I know it does," Stuart said, "Unless they changed the rules. But I guess we're both still using the old edition of the rule book, so it should fine." He wondered if the joke sounded as lame out loud as it did as he was saying it. "It'll be fun," he added.

*

Leonard drove Stuart home after the movie. They parked outside and sat for a minute, not saying anything.

"This was fun," Leonard said, finally.

"Yeah," Stuart agreed. In all it had been one of his better dates. Work had gone fairly well (usually if he had plans for after work the day would be crap, and he'd be exhausted start dozing off the minute he sat down), dinner was good (no awkward surprises about Leonard only eating kale and ginger), the movie was good for a first date (unlike the time he'd taken a date to see Flawless and _then_ found out she was trans). Even the vegan fro-yo place that Stuart suggested after the movie (remembering what Leonard said about the cheese tray), they agreed sucked. 

"Maybe we should do it again?" Leonard fiddled with his keychain, avoiding eye contact. 

"Do um, do you want to come upstairs for a cup of tea?" Stuart offered. He immediately second guessed himself. He didn't want the date to end, he could have kept talking to Leonard for hours. But he didn't want Leonard to think he necessarily wanted sex tonight. Not that he didn't want sex tonight, but crap, did he have condoms? Were they going to do things that necessitated condoms? 

"Yeah, tea is nice." Leonard's voice snapped him back to attention.

Upstairs, while Stuart plugged in the electric kettle, Leonard started flipping through some of drawings on Stuart's desk and wall. 

"Is this the book you're doing for your friend? The Civil War book?" he asked, holding up a page of stylized Union and Confederate leaders.

"Yeah. I just finished it this morning. I think it's going to be pretty cool. If it works out, she has a colleague who may want to do one on WWI. Hopefully I'll be able to upgrade my computer before then, and it will go a little faster."

"That sounds awesome. Depressing and all, but awesome that you're getting work and all. Good for you."

"Thanks," Stuart fiddled with a box of teabags. Not the accolades for minor crap again. He'd graduated top of his class from art school, his career shouldn't just be taking off when he was closing in on 40. Even if he'd taken a hiatus for a while. Dozens of less talented classmates had won awards by now…

"Are you doing anything for any galleries?" Leonard's voice snapped him out of the vicious cycle of comparing himself to others.

"Not right now. I was flipping through some of my old sketchbooks, and found a couple of things I might work on when I've got some time. Maybe if the comic store picks up a little more, and I can bring in Dale twice a week, instead of just once a week."

The kettle interrupted them. Stuart turned back to get the mugs, and Leonard settled on Stuart's desk chair. There were only two chairs in the apartment, a desk chair at the drawing table, and a barstool at the kitchen counter. 

"What's this one?" Leonard held up Stuart's newest sketchbook, opened to a page with an ethereal castle surrounded by a maze.

"Oh, that was sort of a dream I had, and I thought it might be an interesting concept piece. It's not my usual style, but seemed like it could be fun to play around with. You know, how some people write down their dreams? It's like that, but with water colors."

"What kind of fucked up dreams do you have?" Leonard asked, flipping through the pages, past the fish-dragons and vertigo-inducing drop from a tower.

"I had some pretty fucked up dreams for the two weeks I spent on Cymbalta," Stuart started. "One of the many fun side effects."

"Oh. Well, that has to be fun, being less depressed and getting creative ideas," Leonard said, seeming unsure of what to say. Ah, mental health issues, the only thing more awkward than surprise bisexuality. Maybe he could find a way to work in dead grandparent stories, to really round things out.

"It would have been, if it hadn't also made me feel like my skin was melting off my face and leaving me too tired to work on anything when I got home." 

Leonard looked confused.

"It's been a little bit of a hassle," Stuart explained, handing Leonard a mug, and fiddling with the tag on his tea in his own cup. "My first shrink put me on Zoloft, which was sort of helping, but then he killed himself. Then I got a new doctor who gave me a couple of weeks of Cymbalta, to see if that would work better, and I had like every side effect listed and a few that weren't listed. So then she switched me to Lexapro, and that seems to be working pretty well."

Leonard nodded. Stuart wondered if this was oversharing. Leonard started babbling about his mom's research in neurotransmitters and quoting offhand statistics about anti-depressants. Eventually the conversation segued back to Stuart, what his parents did, where he'd grown up, what he'd wanted to be when he grew up… The mugs empty they finally looked at the clock, it was after 2 AM.

"I should go," Leonard said, toying with his mug.

"Yeah. I have to be at work tomorrow," Stuart said, walking Leonard to the door. The awkwardness kicked back in, and they stood in silence for several seconds, when Leonard hesitantly kissed Stuart. It started chastely enough, and Stuart found himself deepening the kiss, parting his lips slightly, dropping a hand to the small of Leonard's back and pulling him in closer. They parted, a little breathless and leaned forehead to forehead, taking in the moment.

"Right. Um. Going." Leonard said. He opened the door and turned back to Stuart, running his fingers through the hair at the nape of Stuart's neck and pulled him in for another kiss. Leonard pulled back sooner the second time.

"Bye," Stuart whispered, smiling, as Leonard stepped out into the hallway. He started to second guess himself, should he have invited Leonard to stay the night. They were really clicking, and he wanted to see where it would go, and his past relationships that started with sex rarely worked out. He leaned against the door for a minute, wondering if Leonard was thinking the same thing, if there'd be a sudden knock on the door. A minute later he could hear the car start from the open window in the kitchen.

*

Stuart should have known that the movie was going to suck when the film fest organizers were handing out free drinks before the movie, not even opting to wait for the glad handing reception and Q-and-A afterword. True to form, very few people stuck around, and eventually Leonard, Stuart, and a bottle of wine sat on terrace watching the cars whiz by below.

"That was a horrible movie," Leonard laughed. "I'm never letting you pick the movie again."

"I can't help it! The art director was my housemate in college! I think I'm contractually obligated to support her legit career after the time I accidentally insulted the porn she was directing. And accidentally got her pregnant. There for a while she said I owed her, for ruining her life."

"Wait, you have a kid?" Leonard did a spit take and turned sideways to face Stuart.

"Not really," Stuart leaned back against the bench and avoiding eye contact. "I mean, biologically I guess. But we arranged for an adoption. Besides, you've donated sperm, it's basically the same thing. Except my donation method was, without doubt, a hell of a lot more fun."

Leonard looked absolutely terrified. "What if he just shows up one day?"

"Been there," Stuart smirked. "She stopped by the store one day. Howard hit on her, so you were probably there, too. It was the most troubling thing I've seen in my entire life. But I think she expected me to be a lot more interesting. I kinda doubt she'll be back."


	5. Providence

  
The video ended and Cassie turned the lights in the living room back on. "Well, what did you all think?"

The housemates sat in stunned silence. Cassie had made porn for her _Sexuality in Film_ class. Which wasn't entirely surprising, seeing as the paint was used as currency for proffering sexual favors in the painting studio. It just … it wasn't good porn. So the five roommates she'd gathered to critique her rough cut looked at each other and tried to come up with helpful feedback.

"The lighting was really good!" 

"Yeah, I thought the color balance was good, I didn't get a headache when you switched back and forth between the people … and the elephant … gang … rape?"

"And set was awesome, where did you get the curtains?

They looked at Stu for his contribution. 

"It sort of sucked." There was a hilarious audible gasp. For someone who had thrown a canvas in the bay when he got a bad critique, he was amazingly mean when offering it to others. He lit a cigarette off the one he was just finishing. "It was like you just picked random sexual tropes and clichés, and filmed them. Like you were trying to make a parody by pulling in the lamest stunts, but without letting the audience know that you know you're making a parody. And the style was weird, like you weren't sure you wanted to film sex. You went from clear focus when they were talking in the office, and then you smeared the lens with Vaseline and put them behind a potted plant for the actual sex. How did the plant follow them like that? And no matter what, cut out the part with the elephants. No one wants to see that. Ever."

Beth smacked his arm.

"But the color balance was REALLY good!" He added. "And the sound editing was awesome." He picked up the bottle of vodka they were passing around, but Cassie grabbed it from his hands and took a swill.

"Well," she said, "I appreciate everyone's thoughtful feedback." She unplugged her computer from the TV, and huffed as she headed up the stairs.

"It was really bad," Gil said when they heard her door slam shut. They all nodded.

"Still, Stu, did you have to point out how bad?" Beth said, taking a long drag off his cigarette.

"What was I supposed to say? She's going to show that in class! How is it possible to make porn that bad, anyway? She and Charlie could just set up a camera and the odds are it would be less bad." 

"They could if they were having sex," Gil chimed in, "But they're not. Charlie was asking me for ideas for diverting her attention. Which is not something I've ever had to worry about before, so I didn't have ideas for him."

*

It was well after 1 AM when there was a knock on Stuart's bedroom door. He was sprawled on the floor, surrounded by pastels. 

"Come on in," he said, loud enough for the person on the other side to hear, but hopefully not loud enough to wake up anyone who might be asleep.

Cassie poked her head around the door, "I saw your light was still on."

She carefully stepped around the stacks of sketchbooks and boxes of supplies that were taking over the floor to make her way to his bed.

"You're not mad about what I said downstairs earlier, right?" Stu asked, rolling to his side.

"No, you were right. The style does change rather suddenly. I do appreciate the honest feedback. I'm not really sure what I'm going to turn in on Tuesday, but I appreciate the feedback."

"Can I just ask though, why elephants?"

She laughed. "I don't know. I was at the zoo with Charlie, and I had my camera, and it was sort of awkward you know, because there were the elephants fucking and there were families around trying to explain the elephants were playing and it was so awkward and funny." 

"Awkward and funny. The way sex should be!" Stu laughed and rolled back to his drawing.

"I suppose," Cassie folded herself into a lotus position on his bed. "Still, what was that supposed to mean that my characters were pulling lame stunts?"

"Just the way they were talking, no one talks like that during sex. I mean, I get that you and Charlie aren't screwing, but even if you're only drawing on terrible high school sex, the wording seemed weird. I've had sex with a lot of girls, and not one of them has ever said the word 'g-spot' to me when we're actually having sex. And I'm not completely positive, but I'm fairly sure that no one can reach it with their hands on the girl's shoulders."

Cassie picked at the corner of Stu's bedspread. "Sure."

"I just don't see how you could have had sex and still made porn that bad, that's all."

"It's not porn! That's why I used the plant! It's not supposed to be porn, it's supposed to be a comment on sex as social currency!" Cassie unfolded herself and stood up to leave.

"Wait," Stu noticed the way she bristled at his comment, and he sat up on his knees and grabbed her hand. "You're not just not having sex with Charlie, you've never had sex at all, have you?"

"That is none of your business!"

He guided her back to the bed and sat across from her. "I just didn't think it was possible to make it this long in art school and not have sex. I mean, I gave a guy a reach around last week to distract him so I could take his paint."

"That's gross, Stu. And possibly illegal."

He shrugged. "He gave me a blowjob to get the paint in the first place. That blue paint has been moving around the studio."

"Moving around like chlamydia, maybe. Have you considered you're overcompensating for the whole one testicle thing?"

He glared at her. "You sound like my parents. I'm not having sex to prove anything about myself, I'm having sex because it's fun and feels good. Besides, I think the only thing I buy more than pencils are condoms." 

"That's seriously disgusting Stu." 

"Whatever, I just think you can't draw or paint or create something you're not familiar with. What's the deal? Not even like, barely get the tip in, post-prom hotel room sex where everyone leaves disappointed and you're not even sure you lost your virginity?"

Cassie rolled her eyes, "Seriously? Way to sell it, Stu. I'm going to bed."

"I didn't say that's what it was like for me, but I gather a non-trivial number of people have really crappy sex the first few times. I've just always figured that most people don't find out they have cancer the first time a girl goes down on them, it's a very different kind of crappy sex. Actually, the sex was pretty awesome..."

"You know what, fuck off Stu." She was up and closed the door behind her. 

*

On Tuesday afternoon, Stu had the windows in his room open and his fan running as he sprayed fixer and matting glue all over to get things prepped for his critique the next day. Around 4 Cassie let herself into his room, without knocking.

"You were right. It was horrible." She slurred her words together, clearly drinking from the bottle in her left hand.

"What was horrible?"

"The porn. You were right, someone called it Mad Libs meets Ron Jeremy." She flopped out on his bed and continued, "I called Charlie and he said I was putting too much pressure on him when he has work to do, too. I think he broke up with me."

"You think?" Stu gave up on his drawings and pulled his desk chair next to the bed, carefully pulling the bottle away from her, before she spilled.

"He says I'm too horny for him! He says he doesn't think I'm respecting his boundaries. Why doesn't he want to have sex with me, Stu? Why doesn't anyone want to have sex with me? I'm a 21 year old virgin! Isn't that like _the_ set up for Penthouse letters."

Stu shook his head, "I don't know."

"Would you have sex with me?"

"I'm sure lots of people would love to have sex with you."

"No seriously!" She pulled herself up to face him. "Fuck me! Everyone has random casual sex but me, and maybe I just need to have sex and then I can make good porn."

"Okay, you've had waaaaay too much to drink, let's get you some aspirin and get you to bed before you start being really crazy." 

With that, she was suddenly straddling his hips, her skirt pulled back up over her thighs, sucking on his neck, grasping at his hair.

"Yeah, no, way too much to drink Cassie, we can't do this." He felt himself stirring at the contact through his jeans. Good God it sucked to have to be responsible. Stupid self-imposed moral code to not have sex with girls who were drunker than him.

"Dude, I've like two drinks. I'm SAD because my boyfriend broke up with me, because I wanted to have sex because maybe hand holding and negotiated kissing isn't enough for me. I'm horny because I never have sex and I live in a house with thin walls and a bunch of artists having hot monkey sex all the time!"

Stu pulled back again. She wasn't wrong, there was a lot of sex going on, and the walls were thin. "You don't want drunken meaningless sex. You've held out this long for a reason."

Cassie looked stunned and a little hurt, "No I haven't! I really like Charlie and he just doesn't want sex, and maybe this can be a thing you and I do, and then Charlie and I can go back to our status quo of hand holding and deep, meaningful conversation."

Stu rolled his eyes, "You are going to regret this conversation later."

"Come on Stu, you're always with someone, you must be at least passible, right? I don't want a relationship, I just want a big, hard … cock." She tried to sound sultry, but the last word was forced. She grabbed his hand and pushed her underwear to the side. Crap it was getting harder to be the level headed one.

"Please, Stu," she went for sultry looks instead of dirty talk.

"Why don't you go downtown and buy a vibrator?"

"Dude! Have you seen how much those cost?" (He had, and more than once traded oral with girls from class when batteries seemed less important than new paintbrushes.) "Come on! Please!"

"Fine, let me go get a condom," he relented, the straining in his pants getting the best of him. 

*

"Wait!"

Stu groaned and lifted his head to look at Scott. Scott had taken over Stu's room while he'd done a semester in Japan. Stu had then moved his things into Gil's room, who had left to do his spring semester in Paris. Scott had invited Stu to come along to one of the bars more commonly frequented by Brown poli-sci majors than RISD art students for what was known as the First Friday Fest. The bar was mostly empty, classes didn't start until Tuesday, but it was probably easier to get to know his new housemate without having to shout over crowds. He was an affable prelaw student, from Atlanta, with aspirations for Georgetown. 

They'd stumbled back to the house, and then up the stairs to Stu's bed, but as soon as Stu's hand's started to drift south, Scott pulled back.

"I just don't do hook-ups," Scott panted, sitting up and starting to tuck his shirt in, "there's a lot of risks, you know, and I mean, I like sex -- a LOT -- and you seem cool, and maybe there's something here with us, but I think we won't get to find out if we screw around tonight. I'd just rather take risks with someone when I know there's something between us, you know?"

Stu swallowed hard. The last time someone said anything about "something between us" was high school. Stu was far too drunk to consider whether or not he'd want a relationship with Scott.

"Yeah, that's understandable." Stu finally gathered his words, "Whatever you're comfortable with."

Scott smiled, and pressed a lingering kiss to Stu's lips, "Maybe we can have a nondrunken date once classes kick into gear, and we know what our schedules are like?"

Stu smiled and nodded as Scott let himself out of the room and headed back to his own bedroom, before silently screaming with frustration into his pillow.

*

The next morning Stu was fixing coffee and cursing the bar, his hangover, and his failed hook-up when Cassie wandered into the kitchen for the first time since he'd returned from Japan.

"Hey Stu, how was your semester?"

"Good, learned a lot about traditional print making. And manga. I bought so much manga. How was your semester?" He really wished she didn't want to be chatty. He just wanted coffee and some fried eggs.

"Okay. I guess. I'm pregnant." 

Stu turned and looked at her, unsure of what to say. She had a giant poster on her wall from the time she took the train to DC to go on a march for reproductive rights, surely she wouldn't be pregnant if she didn't want to be. "Oh. Wow. Um. Charlie? Um. That's cool?"

"I didn't tell Charlie. I didn't tell anyone. I've just gone for boho tops this semester and everyone thinks I'm eating a lot of junk food."

"Why didn't you tell Charlie? I mean, you guys have been dating for years. He must have finally put out for you."

"We broke up again, when I found out I was pregnant this summer."

Stu could see where this was going. No. No no no no no no no no. No. Maybe if he just stood there he'd wake up from the dream. Making sure he never had this exact conversation was why he got the bulk box of condoms.

"Stu, say something," Cassie finally prompted after a few seconds? Minutes? Hours? Of stunned silence.

"I don't know why you're telling me. It can't be MINE. I used a condom!" She rolled her eyes.

"Uh, yeah. She is. Condoms aren't perfect."

"No, condoms aren't perfect when you use them wrong. I'm very familiar with using them right."

"No, Stu, I don't think that's how it really works," she moved to lean against the counter and face him.

"No, this isn't because of me," he pointed at her torso.

"Yes."

"No."

"Hey guys," Scott stumbled into the kitchen. "Is there any coffee? Does anyone want to go get some hashbrowns?"

*

Sunday afternoon she was sitting on his bed, hoping for a different outcome.

"So, what are you going to do? With it?"

"Stop saying 'it.' The ultrasound showed she's a girl."

"Okay, what's your plan for _her_? If you haven't told anyone, don't you think they'll be surprised when you come home from the hospital with a baby one day?"

She shrugged. "I dunno."

Finally he decided to ask straight out. "You go to marches about abortion rights. Why didn't you have an abortion when you found out?"

She shrugged again. "Dunno. I was in shock. I wanted to tell you, but I didn't have your phone number in Japan."

"But you have to have some sort of plan? I mean – do you want a baby? Should we go buy a crib? What do you want me to do? We're not dating, we’re not going to get married and be some Stepford family where I slick back my hair and you make a pot roast for dinner every night. I'm thinking about grad school! Or maybe I'll backpack around Europe and sell my drawings on the street!"

"I dunno. I guess not. I was reading that in Texas there was this woman who left her baby at the hospital. She just gave a fake name when she checked in, and then she left. There's talk about making it legal to leave a baby at the hospital, if you don't want it."

"Okay, but we're in Rhode Island. Are you planning to go to Texas to have the baby? Because here, I think that's called abandonment, and I'm pretty sure it's illegal."

"Yeah. But maybe a nice family would adopt her. Like, really rich people or something!"

He stared in disbelief. "Cassie, I think rich people, like, hire people to have babies for them. Didn't you see the news about the people who kept their foster kids in cages—" Oh fuck, he thought to himself, as he saw the tears start to well up in her eyes, "-I just mean, leaving it to the state …"

Too late, the tears were streaming down her cheeks. 

"Why would you say that?" she blubbered, swatting him on the arm. He moved to try and hug her, the tears coming faster. She tried to wipe her face on his flannel, and managed to smear snot across his shoulder. He winced, this was not how hookups were supposed to end. 

"Maybe we can find some rich people who haven't hired anyone yet?" he said, hoping to quell the tears. This was not what he was good at. "Maybe ask your doctor if they have ideas? Like maybe there's a network, and they hook up people?" 

Cassie nodded, lip quivering as she tried to straighten herself up. "That's a good idea. Maybe you can come with me?"

*

A week later and a meeting with a social worker at the county free clinic and they had the numbers for a handful of adoption agencies and family formation lawyers. The social worker also handed her a page with numbers for therapists who specialized in depression in pregnant women. Cassie assured her that everything was fine. Then the social worker ushered Stu back out into the waiting room, while she and Cassie discussed "legal matters that don't pertain to you," she'd said, closing the door in his face.

"They wanted to make sure you weren't coercing me to give up the baby," she said flatly when they got in her car.

"Oh. Do you feel that way? I mean, if you WANT to keep her--" 

"No. I don't. They were just worried because I hadn't talked about it before. Maybe I should call a therapist."

"It couldn't hurt, I don't think." Stuart sighed with relief. He knew it was purely selfish, that he didn't want to have to pay child support, that he didn't want to tell his parents about the kid. But he was 20. He wanted to think about animation class and the next time he was getting laid and whether or not he could ask his parents for grocery money so he could spend his work study check on cigarettes and paint brushes.

*

They made a half a dozen calls to check the political orientations – Cassie didn't want _her baby_ (the only time Stu ever heard her say that) going to people who were going to use her to vilify people who did have abortions. 

Another week and they met a string of prospective adoptive parents: Doctors, lawyers, bankers, and one Presbyterian minister (who talked a lot about how she was pro-choice, and she and her husband seemed to have waited too long), and a couple of professors. Everyone was almost cloyingly sweet, thanking them for considering helping complete their family. 

"What do you think?" Stu asked that night, back in his room, him half-heartedly working on an animation project, her staring at the ceiling. 

"I dunno. They all seemed OLD, didn't they? Like, are they going to be able to keep up with a baby? I mean, like that one couple, they were 41. They'll be almost 60 when the kid goes to college."

"Cassie, that's not even retired. And they what, ran a marathon last year? I couldn't run a marathon, so I'm sure they're perfectly capable of keeping up with a kid."

"I suppose." She flipped through the stack again, adjusting the paperclips. 

* 

Cassie and her doctor scheduled her induction for the weekend of President's Day, it was close enough to her due date, and she'd miss the fewest classes possible. They'd picked the youngest couple they'd met, he was 38, worked at the White House, she was 39 and worked at some big law firm in DC. When she said the name Stu nodded like he'd heard of it before. 

He sat silently across from them in the maternity waiting room, while Cassie checked in and got settled in her room. He questioned whether he really had to be there at all, he really never wanted anything to do with Cassie's vagina ever again. He'd made the mistake of saying that out loud to her, and was met with a half-hearted punch to the shoulder as she started crying and babbling about how she was doing all the work and carrying her overnight bag for her wasn't such an imposition. 

So he dutifully drove her to the hospital and carried her bag to the maternity wing, and settled in to wait until it was time for him to sign some papers. He watched the couple hold hands, and whisper to each other. The wife nervously toyed with her wedding ring. The husband tinkered with his watch endlessly. When they pulled out their little point and shoot camera and took a picture of each other in front of the labor and delivery sign, Stu finally jumped in, and offered to take the picture for them, so that they could both be in it. He pulled out his camera, a behemoth medium format he'd found at a thrift store in Japan. He wondered if it would be odd to do a couple of candid shots. Would they want candids for the baby book? Eventually Cassie asked that the wife join her (she looked thrilled to be called). Stu and the husband kept averting eye contact.

Slightly after 3 AM, and nearly 18 hours after they'd shown up, the wife came out gleefully clapping. She babbled on about her length and weight and they cried as they embraced. Stu carefully pointed the camera from its place on the chair. If he were them, he'd want a photo of the moment.

Sometime later (he'd lost track of time, fitfully sleeping on a chair in the waiting room) the family services lawyer from the adoption agency showed up. Stu scanned the paperwork; he'd read it before but wanted to at least look like he was being thoughtful before he signed away his rights and responsibilities for the baby.

*

He stopped at the nursery on his way out of the hospital. He saw the husband leaning against the glass with a contented smile, waving at the baby. Surely the guy knew newborns couldn't focus their eyes that far away yet.

"Do you have a name picked out?" Stu finally broke the silence after standing next to the man as the nurses held up the tiny human wrapped in pink, and waved her little hand at them.

"Destiny Willow," he said, "Willow was my wife's mother's name, and we're not religious, but we keep having adoptions fall through for different reasons. We stopped trying for almost a year, but then we got a call … and now we're here. It just seemed to fit."

Stu pursed his lips, wondering if he should say anything. "But Destiny? I don't mean to judge your names, but we've giving her to you because we think you'll do a BETTER job at making sure she doesn't become a stripper. It's day one and you're already not helping her!"

The man looked nonplused. 

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have judged. She's your baby, you can name her whatever you want." Stu wondered if he could say anything to get his foot out of his mouth. "Um, in case I don't see you again, here's the film from my camera." Stu handed over the medium format film canisters. He'd thought about hitting up the studio and printing the pictures himself, in case the composition was terrible. He'd decided he didn't want to have to pay the fee for unregistered drop-in studio time. Besides, would lawyers really know if the photos were a little under or over exposed, or if the blocking was off?

"Also, here," He handed the older man a small stack of books tied with a ribbon he'd snagged from Beth's mixed media supplies. "I made some little picture books for her. ABCs, some Japanese folk tales -I was in Japan last semester- stuff like that."

"Thank you, Stuart," the older man smiled, the corners of his eyes were wet.

"Oh, I mean, it's no big deal. I'm studying illustration. And everyone knows how to bind a book."

"For everything. I don't think we could ever thank you two enough for picking us."

Stu felt a lump in his throat as the other man pulled him in for a hug. He swallowed hard, and quickly retreated for the doors, the sidewalk, the walls of his room. He pulled covers over his head, hoping he could wake up, and find it was still April, he hadn't fucked Cassie, and he just had a dozen drawings to finish for class.

*

"Do you ever wonder, if you can't trust one condom, how can you ever trust any condom after that?" He asked Beth that night, as they passed a bowl back and forth sitting on the back porch watching the snow fall.

She shrugged. "Deep."

"I'm serious," he said, exhaling, "like, we put so much faith –your whole life- in one wee little bit of latex, and then you don't even know that it didn't work!"

"Is someone you know positive? Or is it the whole thing with Cassie and the baby?" she frowned. 

"She told you?"

"No, but it's hard not to notice. She thinks we all think she's just really into boho-grunge. She gets super weird whenever I say anything about it. Ooooh, are you the father? We've had bets going all semester. Gil and I narrowed it down to you, that pervy textiles grad student, or the guy who runs the coffee cart outside of the pottery building. When is she due, did she tell you? I can't figure it out." 

Stu stared at her in disbelief, him, the pervy textiles guy, or coffee cart dude? How did they come up with this list? "She had the baby this morning."

"That's where you two have been! How'd it go? What's the plan?"

"Fine, I guess? I gave her some horribly overpriced flowers from the gift shop this morning, and she said she wanted to go to sleep. We found a couple that wanted to adopt a baby. I stayed in the waiting room with the new father. They're lawyers, they have a house."

"Houses are cool," Beth nodded to herself.

"Yeah, but like, what if you just want to get up and go to Paris? I don't think I want to be tied down like that," Stu said. 

_2012_

The bell on the door chimed, and Stuart looked up from behind the counter, a girl in a Scripps College tee and jeans shuffled in, looking a little out of sorts. Not one of the regulars. Maybe a regular at one of the shops that had better stock and less creepy clientele. When he'd bought the shop there was only one other store in town, now there were two others, and a half a dozen more a reasonable drive away. Girls went to stores where the other customers didn't freak out. Socially savvy guys went with them. It was only May, and too early for a new crop of college freshman. She must be lost.

"Welcome to the Comic Center. Let me know if you need help finding anything."

The kid kept looking up hesitantly, watching the other patrons in the store - Lonely Larry and Captain Sweatpants. When they finally left, the kid nearly immediately came to the register with a Green Lantern poster.

"Hi. Um. Hi." She stammered, handing the poster to Stuart. 

"Hi, Just the poster for you today?" 

"Yeah. No. Yes. Um. You're Mr Bloom, right? I think you might know my parents? I mean my – um. Trevor and Melinda Jackson."

Stuart froze and his eyes shot from the cash register to the kid standing in front of him.

"Destiny?"

"Um… Chloe. They told me I had you to thank for that. And I was sort of in town, so I thought I'd say thank you in person."

"Right. That's good. I'm Stuart. You knew that. So um. How have you been?"

"Good. Good. I'm starting college at Scripps this fall, and there's an orientation thing starting tomorrow, just for the weekend. Then I'll really move out in August, and um. Well. I called … Ms. Roth a while ago, and she said you owned the store here, and I just thought I'd say hello. And thank you, for making sure I didn't have a stripper name."

"Ms. Roth?" Stuart mulled over who the hell … "Oh! Cassie! Right! Yeah. We didn't want you to be a stripper."

He backtracked in his head, seriously, had he been out of school for almost 18 years? That seemed off, he was sure he'd only been in California for 15. Or was it 16? Why did they not require math in art school!? 

"I graduated a year early," she chimed in, probably reading the look on his face. "High school sucked. Everyone acted like I should be so sad to be leaving early, ugh. It's going to be so fun living in California!"

"Wait, you're excited to leave home? Aren't your parents nice? Is everything okay? They seemed nice on paper, are they not actually nice? Was the house a lie?!" Stuart panicked a little.

"Haha!" she laughed, clearly thinking it was a joke. "They're great. DC is just … eh. I'm looking forward to sunshine and flipflops all year."

"So, your parents are cool?"

"Yeah, I guess. For parents."

Stuart nodded. 

"I like the books you made for me. I still have them. They're so cute. I tried to look you up once, to see if you did other books, but I couldn't find anything."

"Oh, no. I mean, I majored in illustration in college. But I usually do more like portraits and ... things."

"Oh, that sounds cool. So you like, sell stuff?"

"Yeah, sometimes," Stuart's eyes darted back and forth between the counter and her earrings. It had been … three years … since he'd even submitted his portfolio for a show. Longer since he'd sold anything. 

"Oh," She seemed … maybe off put. "I'd love to see it sometime, if I could. If you're having a show or something." 

Stuart nodded. "Yeah, nothing right now. The store, you know."

"Right," she nodded and looked around, as if she knew the workings of a small business. "Do you travel a lot now that you own the store? Living in Japan for a while when you were in college must have been so much fun! I went to France for our 8th grade class trip, and I just loved it! Two years for Christmas we went to Egypt, and next month we're going to Peru to see Machu Pichu. I really want to study abroad in college, maybe in Italy. I LOVE Italian food. I mean, I bet it's hard to get away now, but before you bought the store, or during the holidays?"

"Yeah, no, um, well, I almost moved to Florence after college, but then I came to LA instead," he tried to shrug it off, as if he didn't wonder if that was the root of all his problems, years earlier. "But then I moved to San Francisco. Well, Oakland. Oakland-adjacent, anyway, for a while. There's a great art scene there."

"Oh." She bit her lip looking for something to say. Stuart unconsciously mimicked her, and bit his own lip. He vaguely remembered what that was like, jetting off to far away places with a backpack and a map. His passport had long since expired and gotten lost in a move.

"Maybe I'm not the guy you expected to meet today…" Stuart started.

"No! It's not that! I googled you last night, and I read the reviews of the store on Yelp. I don't know what I expected. There just … wasn’t much new? So I thought maybe you'd been super busy doing things the past few years, that … wouldn't … be … on … Google?" She tripped over the last sentence. Were there things Google wouldn't know?

The door chimed in the background, but Stuart was too flustered to look up. 

"Why hell-o," Howard immediately fixated on Chloe.

"No, no, no, hell no, do step any closer!" Stuart almost threw himself between them. "She's 17! And you're engaged! And she's 17!" 

"Wha? I was just saying hello to the lovely female visitor," Howard started to defend himself. Stuart saw Sheldon and Raj getting into a fight over the newest movie memorabilia. He pulled Excalibur off the wall and handed it to Chloe.

"Here," he said, "if he gets any closer to you, or tries anything. Go for his nuts! It's okay, no one would convict you. You might get a public service award."

She looked concerned as Stuart handed her the sword. He stepped away briefly to break up the scuffle, just long enough to be sure that he wasn't going to have to eat the cost of broken merchandise. He spun back around when he heard the door chime. The sword was propped against the counter, the poster was still next to the computer. He ducked down and spotted her walking over to her parents on the bench. He briefly made eye contact with the older man – grayer, but still the same guy he'd spent a super awkward night in the hospital with – and gave him a brief nod. 

He couldn't really blame her for splitting the second she had the chance. He wouldn't have been all that excited to meet himself, either.


	6. Chapter 3

They stumbled up the stairs to Leonard's apartment. It was closer to the freeway off-ramp than Stuart's apartment, and that much cheaper for the overpriced cab ride, after one bottle of wine turned into five. As they had tumbled out of the cab, Stuart tried to psych himself up for the walk home. He thought about taking the taxi the rest of the way, but then he thought about how much he preferred the good peanut butter to the store brand, and decided three miles wasn't really so far.

"This was fun," he said to Leonard, leaning forward for a kiss.

"Wha? Are you leaving?" Leonard pouted. "But you could come upstairs…"

"Shhhhhh!" Leonard emphasized, before turning the key in the lock, "Sheldon has Vulcan hearing. We have to be quiet!"

"Shush yourself then," Stuart giggled in Leonard's ear. 

They crept through the dark apartment, Stuart making exaggerated tiptoe gestures and Leonard biting his lip to keep from laughing. Finally they reached the Leonard's bedroom and shut the door. Stuart grabbed Leonard by the lapels on his jacket and pushed him down onto the bed, kissing him deeply. 

"I thought this was more of a third date activity?" Leonard said as Stuart moved to kiss along his jaw and tried to pull off his coat.

"You want me to stop?" Stuart paused to try and imitate Leonard's pout from earlier.

"No, no of course not! I've always been ahead of the curve," Leonard reached up to pull Stuart back in for another kiss.

Stuart wanted to think it was an impassioned romp, but an outsider probably would have called it desperate flailing as he worked to strip Leonard out of half a dozen layers, knocking off Leonard's glasses in the process of pulling the last tee shirt over his head (Leonard hadn't done so much better at undressing Stuart, nearly dislocating Stuart's shoulder as he tried to push the sport jacket and button down off in one move). It was worth it though, when Leonard's naked form lay back in front of Stuart with an inviting wag of the eyebrows. 

*

After what had to have been only minutes, Stuart felt Leonard shaking him awake. 

"You have to get up now!" he whispered, "Sheldon's going to be up soon, you have to leave."

Stuart squinted at Leonard and glanced at the clock. "Huh?"

"Sheldon, he's going to be up soon. You have to leave before he gets up!"

"But why?" Stuart tried to register the clock, 6:10 AM. He groaned inwardly, he hadn't been up at 6 in the morning since … he couldn't remember.

"Otherwise he'll know you spent the night!" Leonard stated it like it should have been obvious.

"So? I did spend the night?" Stuart wondered if this had to be some sort of bad dream. 

"You don't care if he knows?" Leonard looked confused.

"Do you?" Stuart asked. 

"It's just…" Leonard looked pensive, but continued, "It's like I said the first time we had coffee, he's so rigid about everything, everything is binary and it's just going to be this horribly long conversation where I try to explain why I've dated girls in the past but now we're dating and I don't know what's going to happen and maybe I'll go out with girls again eventually, or maybe with guys, I don't know, and I just don't want to have that conversation today."

"Fine," Stuart sighed. He was too tired to try and think about it. 

"I'm not ashamed you know," Leonard said, as Stuart pulled on his jeans. 

Stuart shrugged as the snarky responses flashed through his head. Of course not, you just let your neurotic roommate run your life, you want the easy bedroom part of a gay relationship but not the awkward social part. 

"It's fine," Stuart settled with, "in the future, if I want to sleep in, I'll bring you back to my place." 

"In the future?" Leonard said with a half-smile.

"I thought I had to leave?" Stuart said, exasperated at having to be up, but not actually out the door.

"Right," Leonard said, standing up and peaking around the door. He waved Stuart back and slammed the door behind him.

Knock knock knock "Leonard?"

"What do you want Sheldon?" Leonard leaned back against the door.

"I thought I heard you talking to someone," Sheldon's voice carried through the door.

"No, just talking to myself," Leonard looked apologetically at Stuart. Stuart contemplated flopping over and going back to sleep. This was a horrible hour to be awake. "Uhhhhh, rehearsing a lecture I'm giving later today."

"Oh, a splendid idea given your past debacles in public speaking. Do you want to go over it in the car, I could point out the flaws in your logic and preemptively give you a list of mathematical errors you're prone to making," Sheldon said.

"That's okay, I got this one," Leonard called out.

"Well, if you're sure. If you change your mind, let me know, I have a list saved on my computer. In the meantime, I'm going to take a shower while you continue rehearsing." 

Leonard held his breath until he heard the bathroom door shut and the water turn on. He guided Stuart out to the front door and paused before unlocking the door. "If it makes you feel better, I also had to try and rush Raj's sister Priya out of here to avoid Sheldon, too."

"Actually, no, talking about your ex-girlfriend doesn't make me feel better," Stuart said a bit too quickly.

Leonard pulled Stuart in for a kiss, morning breath be damned. Suddenly he heard the shower turn off and he pulled back, "I'll call you!" He said, opening the door and pushing Stuart out into the hallway and shutting the door in his face.

Stuart dropped his shoulders and shook his head. He had assumed that with his 40th birthday looming he was too old for roommate drama. He started down the stairs and came around the first corner and ran squarely into Penny.

"Hey Stuart," She said sheepishly, holding her high heels in her hand, "Um, whatcha doing here so early?"

"Fuck if I know," Stuart shook his head. He would have commiserated on the morning walk of shame, if it weren't for their own awkward shared history, and Leonard's push to wait before telling people. He leaned parallel to the wall, giving her room to pass and headed out to catch the bus back to his apartment to change and shower before heading to the store.

*

The next time they did head back to Stuart's apartment instead. And the time after that. Not that they didn't go out, but only to places far away from where they might run into any of Leonard's friends. Stuart briefly wondered if he should be insulted at the implication. He settled on indifferent, and used the opportunity to reconnect with some other art school friends who were actually making art – they'd drive across town to new shows and galleries and experimental film houses (Stuart felt guilty that Leonard always did the driving, and one night convinced Leonard to take the metro to Long Beach for a show, but after spending almost four hours on the trains to get there and back -and having to run to catch the last train back to Pasadena- Leonard begged Stuart to never suggest the metro ever again). Other nights Leonard dropped by the store with grand intentions and Stuart would doze off in the passenger seat before they even made it to dinner.

"There's a meteor shower next week, it's supposed to be really cool," Leonard said, lazily tracing his finger along Stuart's clavicle. Leonard rarely spent the entire night, he tried once and got an angry call from Sheldon about not being home to drive him to work. Stuart had finally been honest that he didn't like it when Leonard left immediately after they had sex, that it felt too much like the hookups he'd (mostly) given up. They gave up lazing in bed for a leisurely shower, hoping to fight the wave of sleepiness. "Raj and Howard and I are going, and I thought you might want to come watch?" 

"Go where to watch?" Stuart asked, "Can't we just go outside?"

"There's a better view if we get away from the city light pollution," Leonard started to explain, "There's a campground up toward Santa Barbara, and I mean, I know you have the store, but if Dale came in maybe we could make a weekend of it? We could head up Saturday afternoon, and then come back Sunday night."

"You want me to come camping with your friends? Camping, like sleeping on the ground? Because first, you complain incessantly about how uncomfortable my futon is, and second, I thought you weren't ready to come out to your friends?"

Leonard shifted to face Stuart, but dropped his gaze to the floor of the cramped shower stall. "I have an inflatable air mattress for camping. And if there's four of us we can justify two tents, when there's three of us it seems silly, so we always crowd into one tent. And I'm not suggesting we have sex in front of them, but maybe it is time that I tell them. Howard tried to set me up with Bernadette's sister for a wedding, and I'm running out of things to tell Sheldon about why I'm skipping out on vintage video games and Cheesecake Factory night and coming home super late." 

*

Over the course of the week Leonard got more and more excited about the camping trip, sending almost a dozen emails with plans, logistics, and links to information about the meteors for Stuart's benefit. Stuart got less and less excited, but tried not to put a damper on Leonard's good mood. Right on schedule at 2:30 Dale showed up to take over for the afternoon, and half an hour later Leonard showed up with his camping gear taking over the backseat. 

"Where's Raj and Howard?" Stuart asked, tossing his backpack in the backseat, "Are they driving separately?"

"Howard ended up having to be on a video call with NASA about a problem with the shelf he built for the space station, and Raj is sort of codependent and didn't want to come if Howard didn't come."

An entire night together and no one else around? Stuart was suddenly a lot more interested in camping.

"Now the real fun begins," Leonard said when they finally reached the campground, "Howard usually put the tent together because he put all these extra lights and mosquito repellant things in his tent. I've never actually put one together before. But how hard can it be, right?" He started fumbling with the stakes and tension rods, while Stuart unloaded some lawn chairs and cooler. He wondered if he should step in and help Leonard, or if Leonard had some unspoken need to prove he could establish shelter. On the other hand, he did have to sleep in whatever Leonard constructed…

Eventually Stuart took pity on Leonard and his fight with the tension rods and stepped in. He also started the camp fire with kindling he found around the campsite, prepped the hotdogs to roast over the fire, showed Leonard how to make apple pie on a stick. Eventually they leaned back in the chairs as the meteors trailed across the sky. 

"You're really good at camp food," Leonard said, picking up the last sugar crusted apple skewer. "Were you a boy scout?"

"Heh, no." Stuart laughed, "I picked up some skills when I lived in this artist commune for a while. Well, we called it a commune. Really we were just squatting in an abandoned warehouse in Oakland." 

Leonard looked moderately concerned at the idea of Stuart being a smelly hippie. They turned their attention back to the sky as the meteors streaked across the horizon.

"Did you see that one!" Leonard exclaimed intermittently as the night went on. It was only when he turned around after Stuart mumbled a less than enthusiastic response after a particularly bright rock came hurtling down that he realized Stuart hadn't been paying attention at all. Instead Stuart had pulled out his omnipresent black sketchbook and had his head down with a pencil behind each ear and a third one in his hand.

"Whatcha working on there?" Leonard asked.

Stuart looked up sheepishly, realizing he'd been caught. "Nothing. Just doodling."

"Can I see?" 

"It's not very good. It's just a doodle," Stuart mumbled trying to move the book out of Leonard's reach. 

"Wow, this is practically like a photograph," he said, grabbing the book from Stuart and looking at scene on the page. He flipped back a page and found sketches of the camp fire, Leonard's profile against the night sky, a pair of shoes that looked suspiciously like the ones Stuart was currently wearing. Then something clicked in Leonard's head, "You're not having a good time, aren't you?" 

"No … yeah. I'm sorry! I wanted to enjoy it! But I smell like a campfire, and the mosquitos keep biting me and I just don't see the point of voluntarily being a hobo! I lived in my store last year! I spent two years as a floor monitor in a freshman dorm so I'd have a place to live while I was in business school! I actually was a hobo for two years in Oakland! But I'm 38 years old now! I don't want to have to wear flip flops to take a shower or cook oatmeal in a tin can! I was even excited when you said Howard and Raj weren't coming because I thought we could have some fun up here together, but now all I can think about is how much mosquito bites on my balls would suck. Poor choice of words, but the point remains!"

"But I brought the mosquito clip on fans," Leonard said holding up the contraption. "So actually, we don't have to worry about mosquitos in the tent…"

*

Inside the tent Stuart made quick work of Leonard's shirt and pants. Stuart's mouth worked down Leonard's chin, throat, and sucked on Leonard's collarbone, leaving a mark.

"What am I supposed to say if someone sees that?" Leonard asked, running his hands over Stuart's chest while pulling off his tee.

"Attacked by a very large mosquito," Stuart murmured, running his hand along the waistband of Leonard's boxers. 

"Did you hear that? I think I heard a car!" Leonard said, tugging Stuart's hair. Stuart sighed, he was really going to have to say something to Leonard about that, not that it had ever been a kink of his, but he had a whole lot less hair these days than when he was younger, and yanking on it during blow jobs wasn't going to help it.

"We have a nylon sheet for walls, of course you can hear things. The people two camp sites over can probably hear you begging me right now, too." 

Stuart could feel Leonard's skin heat up from the remark. "I like it," he added with a quick kiss to reassure Leonard, "I like knowing I've got you hot and bothered." He started to resume, but a pair of headlights turned into their campsite, casting shadows across the tent. 

Leonard's eyes bugged in his head. "Shhhhh," Stuart whispered, "the car is just lost and turning around."

"Leonard? Stuart?" Howard's voice rang out. 

"Fuck!" Leonard seethed. "Just a second!" He called out, pushing Stuart back and scrambling for his jeans. Stuart pulled one of the two sleeping bags so that it looked like he'd been sleeping in it, not using it as a blanket, pulled down the zipper on the tent flap just enough to poke his head though.

"Hey guys!" he said with an exaggerated yawn. "You made it after all!"

"Yeah, Bernie, Amy and Penny went to some spa thing and my video call didn't take as long as I thought it would, so we thought we'd try to catch some of the meteors. We tried calling a dozen times, but the service kept cutting out," Howard said, pulling a bag from the backseat of the car.

"Why are you guys asleep already? The show doesn't really pick up for another two hours!" Raj chimed in. 

"Uhhh, we were just taking a nap, so we're be wide awake for the good meteors," Stuart adlibbed.

"Smart," Raj nodded, "I brought Red Bull though!"

Stuart pulled his head back inside the tent to find Leonard zipping his hoodie all the way up. Stuart raised an eyebrow.

"It shows," Leonard fumed, unzipping the hoodie a little to reveal the hickey. It really did. Oops, Stuart smirked to himself.

They joined Howard and Raj as Howard finished the touches on what had to be the nicest tent Stuart had ever seen. Seriously, if he'd had a tent like that he wouldn't have cared about being homeless. It actually looked nicer than his current apartment. Howard had set up the tent, a generator, a set of mini high powered flood lights, a mini refrigerator.

"Dude, are you allergic to anything, you're swelling up!" Howard blurted out when Stuart settled into his chair.

"Huh?" Stuart touched his face. He'd never been allergic to anything before…

"Yeah dude, your lips are all swollen like Howard when has exposure to trace amounts of peanut," Raj chimed in, frowning at Stuart.

"He burned himself on an apple pie! We made pie on a stick! It was hot! He burned himself!" Leonard jumped in. 

"Oooh, pie on a stick? Can you make more?" Raj asked, clearly intrigued. Point Leonard for deflecting.


	7. Oakland

The first time he said he wanted to be a painter, his grandfather told him to go paint the garage. Thirteen years later, he perched on top of a roof overlooking San Francisco with a power drill, he thinks his grandfather was right, he could have skipped art school and gone straight for being a contractor, and probably be able to regularly shower.

Wiping the sweat off the back of his neck he finished the last solar panel, and carefully crossed back to the ladder and down to solid ground. 

After … Scott, he'd considered moving back to Tacoma. He'd crashed with some friends for a few days, with no idea where to go. He'd returned the moving truck, pared down his furniture, and stuffed his remaining possessions into a used station wagon, and figured he could meander up 101, stop when he felt like it, fold the seats down to get some sleep, and eventually show up on his parents' doorstep, admitting failure: at a self-sustaining art career, at relationships, at making good choices.

He made it as far as Oakland before the car started making a squeaking noise. He found a garage and dropped it off – they assured him that it would only take a day for the new belt to be delivered and installed. Enjoy the city! Visit Alcatraz! He threw some clothes into his backpack, grabbed his sketchbook, and headed for the light rail station. He figured he'd go and bum around the art district for a while, remind himself of his shortcomings. But, wherever there was an art district, there was usually a hostel, which would give him a place to stay for the night.

He'd ended up crashing into a housemate of one semester, but a friendly face and a nice surprise. Dave had taken him to a cheap diner with perfectly greasy coffee and oversized slices of pie. 

"Where IS Tacoma, and why are you going there?" Dave asked, "I mean, at least people have heard of Seattle."

"I don't think I could afford rent in Seattle," Stuart laughed, swirling his coffee, "Tacoma might not have a scene, but at least I won't have to pay rent."

"Dude, you should join an artists' coop," Dave snapped at him, like the light bulb had just gone off.

"What?"

"We just started this great one, over in Uptown Oakland, it's a big building and a bunch of us got together to split costs and all, and there's so much space, so you can live there and work on paintings or sculpture or whatever you do. We're going to try and convert the first floor to a show space eventually."

"That sounds pretty awesome," Stuart agreed, "Maybe I'll find something like that in Washington."

"Come over, tonight. You said you were going to go find a hostel? Dude, that's lame, I'm sure we have some spare couch space you can crash on tonight. Come see the place, it's so awesome."

One night turned into one week. Into one month. Into six months. It was a pretty awesome concept. Not perfect. Dave had overstated the accommodations a bit: It wasn’t cool loft space so much as it was an empty warehouse, and some people had built some rickety platforms and walls to divide the space, and the power was a little inconsistent. And the water never actually got hot. But Stuart managed to secure a corner with a solid floor, find some new furniture (and some camping gear, including makeshift shower with a solar powered water heater, making him the most popular guy in the coop). It might not have been Paris or Florence, but it also wasn't Tacoma, and it wasn't long before he'd found a nice niche selling silly little greeting cards at a weekend market. So maybe it wasn't a failure. Maybe this was good.

Not long after he'd officially moved in, Dave had goaded him into driving to Novato to pick up some solar panels and lighting equipment that a friend of a friend, or something, had offered up. Dave had offered him gas money and a bag of weed, in exchange for getting the solar panels back to Oakland and mounted on the roof of the coop. He was sure the power drain he was using for his grow lights was going to tip off the cops, and since the coop overlooked the highway, he didn't want to keep his product on the roof. 

When he first tried to lift a solar panel to get it into his car, he was positive it wasn't a fair deal, but Dave did grow some awesome weed. And Stuart been forced to cut back on smoking (everything) – birthday cards weren't _that_ profitable. Plus, he suspected Dave's grow lights were also the reason the power was so inconsistent, and if not the grow lights then his grown-up wall-sized version of Lite Brite installations that he'd put together ("Lori is great, but her work is hardly innovative!" Dave whined, "Her work is just popular because she can spend a couple thousand dollars on the official stuff and put a corporate label on it! I'm using recycled materials creating my own circuit boards, and no one cares that my stuff is twice the size!" "Quit whining, and turn off the God-damned wall" one of the other residents shrieked at him, "I just want to use my power drill!"). In the end, solar panel installation wasn't the hardest thing he'd ever done, and when he sat back with a joint in hand _and_ was actually able to turn on his laptop and scan some old drawings so that he could do multiple prints – it wasn't such a bad trade off.

*

"Dude, you busy this afternoon?"

"Why?" Stuart glanced up from his sketchbook. 

"One of the guys in this grower network I'm in, his solar panels broke in the hail storm, but he was saying he doesn't want to have to climb up on his roof anymore. He said he'd give me $500 to get up there and hook up a new one. But it's like, an angled roof, it's not flat like here, and I think it's a two person job. Come with, and I'll split it with you, ."

It wasn't a hard sell, $250 would be a lot of art supplies. And food. And weed. 

"We should totally do that again!" Dave said, as they sat uncorked a new bottle of wine, sitting on the roof next to their own solar panels, "Think about it! I bet there's a lot of aging hippies around here than want solar energy, but don't want to have to crawl around on their roofs to do it. We should hit that market!"

Stuart leaned his head back, the cheap wine burned his throat, and the exhaust coming off the freeway irritated his eyes. 

"What the hell," Stuart said, raising his glass. "To the sun!"

*

He wasn't sure at what point, if there was an exact point, when he became a solar panel technician, rather than an artist. Certainly sometime after he fell into bed with Skye, she'd made it clear she wouldn't go out with him if they'd just met. 

"I don't see why you keep living here," she said, trailing a finger across the boxes of supplies lined up across the wall of his bedroom-studio space. "You don't create anything. Why hang out with creative people, when you don't even bother anymore?"

She did "street art installations," her hair was a different color every time he saw her, she smelled of aerosol paints and day old weed, and they'd never been in love. They hadn't been in lust, either, not even at the beginning, but it had been a comfortable, easy hook-up for both of them, with no expectations for one another, and they'd settled into an unremarkable routine together. 

But, she wasn't entirely wrong. Two years after leaving LA, three years after graduation, he spent more time on ladders with a drill than he did with a pen and sketchbook. It had turned out that Dave was right, there was a market of aging hippies who wanted solar panels, but didn't want to install them. It was remarkably lucrative, far more than any greeting card bundle, more than any baby mural, more than any wedding portrait he'd ever done. It was just enough to have some savings – which came at the perfect time: It turned out the landlord for the coop was actually a scam artist, and the building had gone to auction and been sold to developers to turn into condos.

Stuart found himself at Skye's apartment. It took a week for the ambivalence to take over, coupled with her roommate's snarky comments about him moving in for pussy and hot water. He collected his things unceremoniously, and headed out.

He contemplated Tacoma, again, although he was pretty sure there wasn't much a market for solar panels in city with 224 cloudy days a year. Instead he found the hostel he'd gone looking for three years prior. He and Dave had three more jobs in their queue, the profits from those would keep him afloat for at least a month, maybe two if he was careful. 

Stuart and Dave had managed to line up just enough clients to be able to rent a tiny garage to store their supplies and the truck, but not enough to be able afford apartments. Instead they recreated the art coop, and built some makeshift walls. It was good enough for a while, but the close proximity was beginning to wear on them. They'd both inadvertently brought dates "home" one night, and found just how poorly plywood worked for sound dampening. Stuart never actually saw Dave's date, but heard her argument that thin walls and being able to hear the roommate's moans and begging just made her feel like she was in some weird porno or doing a show and she was leaving. Stuart considered calling out that it wasn't her, it was things his date was doing that were eliciting the moans, until his date swallowed a little more, and Stuart lost his train of the thought. The next morning, he'd scribbled his number on a piece of paper, to offer to … James? Jack? Jeff? Joe? … who'd responded that Dave's date was right, the sound transfer was super creepy, and wished Stuart good luck in finding someone who didn't care.

*

"Why don't you boys have some cocoa before you leave." Their latest client, a rotund lady with frizzy gray hair permanently crowned by reading glasses, shoved two mugs of frothy chocolate at them. 

"How's business going?" her husband said, pulling out the kitchen chairs and pointing to them to sit down. The two matched perfectly, Stuart had read once that over time couples started to look alike, and these two were the epitome of the concept. While her hair frizzed and provided a nest for her glasses, his hung around his neck on a woven rope, but otherwise they both had the same laugh lines around their eyes, the same tan from too much time in the sun, the same extra weight around their midsection. "I love hearing about little start-ups. It's so great to see people still creating local businesses. All my students want to start dot coms, and I don't know that the market is going to support them. Tell me, what's your advertising strategy?"

"Honey, they are not your students, stop quizzing them," the wife chided, refilling Stuart's mug. 

"It's fine," Stuart interrupted, "We mostly rely on word of mouth. So please tell your friends about us!"

…Forty-five minutes later he and Dave sat shell shocked in the truck, after the man had chattered away about advertising, investing, tax shelters. His wife had finally pulled him away, pointing out to her husband that they'd glazed over from fear or information overload. 

"Sorry about that, boys. I guess you can take the professor out of the classroom, but you can't take the classroom out of the professor," he'd said as they headed out the door, "You have a potential goldmine here, and I'd hate to see you waste it. The deadline is coming up soon for admission to the MBA program, and you should really consider it. You're doing great by happenstance here, think of how successful you could be with a little training."

"I wonder if they have student housing," Stuart said, turning the key and backing out of the driveway, the man's words rolling around in his head.

*

With a little help from his client (and now, advisor) he didn't just get student housing, he got a job as a resident advisor in a freshman dorm. It wasn't the greatest sounding job, but the housing was free and he got a small stipend, and he didn't have to share the back of the garage, which put him and Dave on much better terms with each other. Stuart had assumed his parents wouldn't want to pay for yet another round of education, and had filled out all the paperwork for student loans, but when he told them he'd been accepted to Berkley, they'd immediately sent him a check for all of his tuition. 

"Do you think Mom and Dad are in the mob? How did they come up with $30,000 with less than a week's notice?" Stuart mused on the phone with his older sister.

"I think they consider it insurance that you won't move home for at least another couple of years," Melissa laughed, "Besides, business school? Maybe they've got their fingers crossed you'll be successful enough to get them a nice nursing home when they're old."

Stuart couldn't help but think the stock market was probably a better gamble.

*

Stuart never felt like he fit in with the other students in business school. For all that the program advertised that they wanted people who thought beyond the status quo, his classmates were exactly what he expected them to be: suit wearing corporate drones, who _thought_ they were hot, young, and innovative. He tried hard not to say that they reminded him of a certain ex – he'd spent three years trying to get over Scott and forget about him. Now he was surrounded by dozens and dozens of clones. 

He tried not to think about it, and threw himself at school and at work. He hated to admit that he liked the program, and it was more useful than he'd imagined it could possibly be. His mind spun around with ideas for increasing sales, ways to maintain clients, better systems for invoicing … and, he hated to admit it, other businesses. He'd been completely dumbfounded in class one day when the professor talked about how an entrepreneur would start multiple businesses, but the more he thought about it, the better it sounded. All the things he'd kinda sort of thought about over the years, but seemed far too … settled. Like owning his own art gallery. Slowly, the idea of paying bills and salaries and taxes and advertising and recruitment didn't seem as burdensome as he'd always assumed. Eventually. For now, for now the solar panels (rebranded Solartecnix, after Stuart read a paper that people were drawn to words with X's in them, and that portmanteau words were the way of the future) were enough. His classes mostly worked out such that he was still able to crawl around on rooftops during the day, take classes in the evenings, and make sure freshman weren't killing themselves at night.

The dorm was simultaneously more disgusting, but also less work than he'd guessed when he took the job. Mostly he just had to call the facilities management team when someone puked in the washing machines, and about twice a semester he ended up arbitrating roommate squabbles about minifridge sharing and balancing privacy for hookups with equal access to an equally paid for room. In exchange he got a room to himself, high speed internet, and the nicest furniture he'd had since he was a freshman at RISD's dorms.

*

"I'm not sure I'd be proud of the decision to become a man-whore," Melissa said on the phone. Stuart leaned back against the wall of his room, a brief quiet moment on a Friday afternoon before the partying set in.

"I'm not a man-whore. I'm just too busy to spend the time dealing with a relationship. Aren't you always saying that relationships take work?" Stuart could hear her snort on the other end of the line, "So whatever, I'm just having some fun. And you know what, the people I'm _having fun_ with know it, too. We're all on the same page, no one is surprised to learn this is just sex."

"I still fail to see how trying to go on a date with a person from each department at the university is less work for you," she said. 

"No, that's unrelated," Stuart rubbed his eyes. "I'm tired of going out with people in the business school, they all start by asking what you're five year plans are, or if you have a start-up, or if you have an externship lined up. There has to be a department out there with people who are not into this insane Type A hyperdriven microculture. And I'm going to find them! Starting with the anthropology department."

"Sure thing, man-whore," Melissa laughed, "To paraphrase the Chicago mob, get tested early and often. See if student health offers gift certificates, it will make your Christmas shopping so much easier!"

*

It was a trite parody of some rom-com, the string of first dates and crazy people he went out with over the 18 months after he decided to stop pretending he wanted a long term relationship. He imagined it as a montage, with pithy music playing in the background as a series of dates paraded by.

Kelly, from American Studies:  
"That's cool how you're not obsessed with your looks. It seems like most guys would have gotten hair plugs and an eye lift."

Perhaps this was a terrible, terrible idea.

Garreth, from Chemistry:  
"I'm really into juicing, try this kale-apple-ginger-carrot juice I brought with me. I put extra ginger in it," he winked.

'Oh,' Stuart thought, trying to catch his breath, the tingling sensation lingering on his lips as the other man began working his way down Stuart's torso, 'Ginger is awesome.'

Theo, from Folklore:  
"Just so we're clear, I'm not gay. I only go out with chicks."

"It's cool, as long as you're going to go down on me, right?" Stuart mumbled, fumbling with Theo's zipper, "I'll suck your dick in the most hetero way possible." 

Barry, from Physics:  
"It's not a wisp, it's cawwed gwiding wiquids."

"Oh," Stuart nodded, trying hard not to parrot the guy's speech impediment back at him. How hawd, damn it, how hard could it be to not use Ls or Rs fow the evening? Vewy. VERY. Oh wew, fuck it, Stuart thought, maybe he just sounded wike he had a stuttering pwoblem. The guy cewtainwy wouldn't be in any position to judge. Maybe they could get to the non-speaking portion of the night sooner.

Lily, from Operations Research:  
"Do you have a personal relationship with our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ?" 

"You know, I don't think we're really on the same page here," Stuart said, sipping his coffee, starting to plan out the rest of his night. He had some invoices to print, and a paper to finish for tax class--.

"It's just that I only have casual sex with guys who come with me to church, because Jesus told me in a dream-prophecy I had the night I saw _Godspell_ for the first time that I should channel my over-active libido into doing the Lord's work."

"I'm really more Team Moses." He was willing to do a lot of things to get laid on a Saturday night, but Sundays were reserved for sleeping in and brunch.

Trina, from Urban Design:  
"I'm a psy-vamp, I get feed off the energy of other people."

"Oh, that's … interesting." Stuart bit his lip, wondering how exactly she was going to harvest his energy.

"I totally get off on other people getting off," she continued, "So like, would you be cool with me calling a couple of friends to come over?"

Well, even if they harvested all of his energy, at least he'd die happy, Stuart thought, nodding furiously. Jackpot.

*

The buzz of his phone jerked him awake, after he'd fallen asleep on the couch he used to mediate roommate squabbles, surrounded by half-finished sketches, to-do lists, and order forms from clients, purchase orders for equipment, a handful of textbooks, and a notes for a paper that he was sure would magically write itself. 

"Hello," he croaked, not checking caller id.

"Heeeeeeey," a voice slurred on the other end, "I'm horny. Can I come over?"

He checked the caller ID while scrambling to toss all his dirty laundry in the closet. The last call was from Erin. Erin from the statistics department, who had spent a really long time explaining how statistics wasn't math. They were so close to heading back to his place, until she found out he lived in one of the freshman dorms ("I'm not a freshman, I'm an RA! I have my own bathroom!" he pleaded. "But, still, the morning elevator ride of shame with a bunch of kids? I'm not that desperate.").

He was finishing swishing with some mouthwash when he heard a knock on the door. On the one hand, he appreciated the desk attendant letting her in, on the other hand, the RAs really were supposed to set good examples for the students and go down and sign in their guests. 

They didn't even exchange pleasantries before their faces crashed into each other and started pulling off layers. She'd clearly been drinking, based on the sloppy attack on his face, but it wasn't so sloppy to be a turn off. Stuart ran his hands through her short hair – he didn't recall it being that short, or that dark, but he chalked it up to the low lighting in his room. Plus, how often had he dyed his own hair when he was younger? 

"Fuck, you're so hot," she purred into Stuart's mouth, deeper than she'd sounded on the phone, "I canna wait to suck your great big throbbing cock."

Crap, Stuart hated dirty talk. It always sounded ridiculous (and even more so when he repeated it to himself later). He untucked the back of her shirt with one hand, then snaked up her spine with his other hand to unhook her bra.

"Mmmm, that's so sexy that you didn't wear a bra," Stuart murmured back, bringing his hand around to the front. But before reaching his intended destination, she pulled back and sat up straight. 'Fuck,' Stuart though, 'what was wrong with that?'

"You know I'm a dude, right?"

"Wait," now it was Stuart's turn to snap to attention and sit up straight, "who are you?" He fumbled with the bedside lamp.

"Adam!" he shouted as Stuart clicked the light on. "Who did you think I was?"

Oops. 

"Um…" was clearly the wrong answer, Stuart realized, as Adam (one of the other RAs from the building) stood up, tucking his shirt back into his pants and looking around for his shoes. 

"It's just my phone!" Stuart finally managed to find some words, "It's a piece of junk, and you didn't sound like you on the phone, and it showed my last call was from someone else, and come on, you don't have to leave!"

"Actually dude, being mistaken for a girl is sort of a boner killer, I'm gonna go." 

Stuart sighed, locking the door after Adam had all but sprinted out. That was going to make the next social event awkward.


	8. Chapter 4

"No, it's no problem! Thursday!" Stuart said with a forced smile into the phone. He put the phone back on the charger, and face planted into the counter as Leonard walked in.

"Someone fun coming to town?" Leonard asked, putting two to-go boxes from the cafeteria on the counter. Their weekend plans has been shot when Dale quit to pick up more hours at his job at a grocery store ("At least they don't have to teach him to do returns," Stuart laughed when he told Leonard). With Stuart back at the store 70 hours a week, a couple of short lunch-dates seemed to be the best they could find time for.

"It's nothing," Stuart said, trying to perk up. It was the parents of the guy he was subletting from. Who had been kicked out of his study abroad program several months early, and would be back later in the week. Seriously, who tried to pack a pound of weed in their carryon when leaving from a weekend trip to the Netherlands? Rookies.

"Okay. I brought lunch."

"Thanks. It's really nothing, just a distributor rep."

Leonard nodded and put the food on the counter and looked across the mess of papers on the counter. One letter caught his eye.

"What's this from a gallery in San Francisco? They want you to do a show?" Leonard pulled it out from the stack.

"It's a form letter, you send them a sample from your portfolio and they offer you an absurdly low cut for your own work, under the pretense of getting to use their name as a reference," Stuart explained, wondering if he could stealthily search craigslist for a new apartment without Leonard noticing. It wasn't that he didn't want to tell Leonard … it was just that the last time his lease was up he ended up moving in with his girlfriend and the whole thing ended badly, he didn't want to take the risk that Leonard would invite him to move in. Much better to have a new place lined up, and make it look like he was moving deliberately. Just, on short notice.

"It says they saw your work at a shop and enjoyed meeting you at the LA Art Show. When was that? Why didn't you tell me you had things for sale?"

"It's nothing. It was just a networking thing people go to, and you give them your card and then they send you form letters. I found a couple of coffee shops that do the whole "local artist" thing, and I framed some stylized prints of coffee cups and muffins. Apparently boring still life is popular this year."

"That's awesome, why didn't you tell me?" Leonard prompted again.

"It's not a big deal. It's just pay-the-bills sort of crap. I mean, you don't tell me about every experiment you do at work, right?" Stuart felt bad saying that, from the way Leonard pursed his lips and shifted his weight, Stuart could tell Leonard had been telling him about every experiment. Oops. 

*

By the time new comics night rolled around the following week, Stuart was beginning to debate his choices from the previous week. The air mattress was a lot less comfortable than he'd recalled (probably because he'd gotten used to being able to roll over in his sleep). Carting his stuff from the apartment to the store had been a hassle, when he'd forgotten about all the things he'd slowly picked up over the previous few months. Like 70 pounds of tile that seemed like such a steal… when he was helping a friend pick up furniture and could carry in in her _car_. And then of course, not telling Leonard also meant Leonard had sent him more than a few texts seeing if he wanted to meet up and head back to Stuart's apartment to screw around. Which wasn't really going to work, and the reminder left him frustrated.

*

"Stuart, do you have the newest Avengers/X-Men crossover?" Sheldon finally interrupted Bob's ongoing spiel about why Robert Downy Jr as Sherlock would end up in a stalemate with Robert Downy Jr as Iron Man.

"I think that one is still in the box, I haven't had a chance to unpack it yet," Stuart sighed.

"But tonight is new comics night. You have to unpack the comics. Next week, it won't be new."

"It will be new to you."

"That's not the same."

"You better go unpack it," Bob said, scanning the room for someone else who might listen to his theory. 

Stuart nodded and headed back to the store room (bedroom, kitchen, studio) to get the last of the boxes. He didn't hear Leonard follow him in, and almost dropped the box in surprise when he turned around and ran into Leonard.

"Employees only, you know," Stuart said, hoping to get him out before he noticed the additions to the backroom. Like the air mattress. Or the suitcase.

"Really?" Leonard glanced over his shoulder, making sure no one was within earshot, "You never seemed to have a problem before…"

Stuart smiled, a legitimate smile for a change, but still pushed Leonard back "New comics night. People are getting feisty. Well, Sheldon is getting feisty." 

"Why is your air mattress set up in here?" Leonard asked, grabbing the second unopened box, and following Stuart back to the front counter.

"Oh, it's nothing, the guy I was subletting from got kicked out of his study abroad program, so he came back early, and I guess he's selling weed domestically until next term. I've got another place lined up, but it's not available for a few more days, so I'm just crashing here instead."

"Why didn't you say anything?" Leonard asked, "You could have stayed with us." 

Sheldon's Vulcan hearing immediately kicked in, and he almost sprinted to the counter, "No! You can't offer to let him stay with us, he hasn't passed the roommate test questions." 

"It's okay, Sheldon, I'm not going to come stay with you guys," Stuart interjected. He'd spent just enough time with Sheldon to know he didn't want to spend any more time with Sheldon. 

"Sheldon, don't be rude," Leonard turned to face Sheldon, "Stuart's sleeping in his store! It's only polite to let him come over and take a shower once in a while."

"It's okay," Stuart waved his hands to try and get their attention, "I really don't want to come stay with you."

"Why couldn't he go stay with Raj? Or a hotel?" Sheldon huffed.

"Does it matter what I want?" Stuart asked no one in particular. Raj, standing nearby, shook his head.

"You can stay with me if you want," Raj whispered to him, not wanting to get caught up in the Leonard-Sheldon discussion.

"I'm fine here, really," Stuart answered, before looking back.

"He's living in his store," Leonard emphasized. "I doubt he can afford a hotel." Stuart glared at the back of Leonard's head. It was true, of course, but he didn't have to say it.

"Fine," Sheldon spat, "Stuart can stay over, but I want a blood sample to send to the lab and we need to head home early so I can go over the safety briefing with him."

"I'm not giving you my blood," Stuart said flatly, hoping for a way out.

"We'll see about that."

*

"Sheldon, remember, no emergency drills, no sneaking in to take Stuart's blood, nothing," Leonard said pointedly in the hallway. Stuart sat in the bedroom, fiddling with the ties on the air mattress carrier. He had no intention of sleeping on the inflatable bed – he could do that back at the store, and not have to get up at the absurd hour that Leonard and Sheldon got up. 

"Why can't you just lock your door?" Stuart asked when Leonard came back and closed the door behind him.

"He takes the locks off the doors." 

Stuart frowned as he set the air mattress on the floor, and turned to face Leonard. "Thanks for letting me stay here. I uh, I don't really know why I didn't tell you before, that I was between places."

Leonard shrugged as he took off his robe and got into bed. 

"I don't care. I mean, I guess there's a lot you don't tell me. It's fine."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Could we not talk about this? I'm not convinced Sheldon's not listening."

"You know that's super creepy, right?"

Leonard rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Yeah. But whatever, can we talk about it later?"

Stuart shrugged as he pulled off his shirt and jeans and crawled under the covers. On the one hand he could Leonard did not think it was fine, but on the other hand, he was grateful to be able to stretch out and roll over. 

"It's not my fault that I have advanced hearing," Sheldon's voice broke the silence. "It's one of the many signs that I'm a homo novus. Also, blame the building contractors for using low grade insulation and sound dampening materials when they built this place."

Stuart rolled his eyes and flipped rolled away from Leonard, to face the wall. Behind him he heard an exasperated sigh.

*

Stuart found himself dozing off before lunchtime. Leonard had shaken him awake a little after 6:30 in the morning, hours before Stuart usually got up. Sheldon had monitored his milk usage, noting that it wasn't typically communal milk, since Leonard didn't drink it. They'd dropped him off at the comic book store at 7:45 so they could be at work at 8, and leaving Stuart to restlessly toss on the air mattress in the back room until he gave up and walked to the coffee shop to get a muffin at the coffee shop at 10:45. 

His email chimed and snapped him back to reality. 

_From: Leonard  
Subj: Sat night_

_Amy convinced Sheldon to go to a family wedding in San Diego this weekend. They're leaving Saturday morning and driving back Sunday, basically the shortest visit possible while convincing her family she really does have a boyfriend. Wanna come over?_

Even if Leonard rousted him at 6 AM on a Sunday, the prospect of having a real bed and the apartment to themselves was too good an offer for Stuart to turn down.

*

The prospect of sex had finally spurred Stuart into action. After Leonard's email he'd finished inking two commissions he'd picked up off deviantArt that had seemed easy enough (or at least, not too creepy) and handed them off to the FedEx driver, scanned the last pages of character sketches for an author he'd met at an illustrator society meeting, tagged a couple of pages from his sketchbook for things to flesh out for the show, finalized three orders of new comics and graphic novels, and swept the entire store. At exactly 9:01 he ushered Lonely Larry and Captain Sweatpants out of the store, flipped the sign, turned off the lights and headed for Leonard's car, parked at the curb.

He was about five feet away when he considered turning back. Raj and Howard were in the car. 

"Hey," he said, climbing in the backseat next to Howard. At least he wasn't sitting in the middle.

"Hey," Leonard said flatly. 

"Hey!" Raj and Howard said in unison. 

"So … vintage video game night continuing without Sheldon?" Stuart asked.

"Penny and Bernie wanted to go see some chick flick, Raj's blind date was over before it began, and we thought hey, guy's night out!" Howard filled in the details for him, "We thought we might go to a bar, and hit on the ladies."

"You're married," Raj reminded him.

"Hey, as long as I come home to Bernadette, she knows women can't resist my magnetic charm! Besides, I can be your wingman."

"You know, or head home and play Halo or something," Leonard chimed in from the front seat, "I bet Stuart is really tired from working all day." 

"Whatever," Stuart responded. It would probably be more frustrating to be at Leonard's apartment, in close proximity, than at a bar. Maybe they could escape from Leonard's helicoptering friends for a while. "Actually, a friend of mine invited me to a party tonight, I told her I wasn't going, but I could call her, if you want? But it's all the way in Malibu Canyon."

*

Raj had gone straight for the open bar portion of the open house, while Howard had immediately started following a gaggle of women who were a stiff breeze away from being totally naked. Stuart had tried to reel Howard back in, but Howard was having none of it. Stuart gave up, grabbed a couple of bottles of beer from a cooler, and pushed Leonard toward some of the displays people had set up. The conversation swung between quips about the projects, and Stuart trying to get to the bottom of Leonard's dig about Stuart not telling him things. 

"This is … interesting," Leonard said, looking at a cactus someone had replanted in a metal tub, affixed a cotton ball to each spine, and stenciled 'FDA' all over the branches.

"I'm not used to people wanting to know everything in my life. It's weird for me to talk about every single project I've got going on," Stuart said, toeing at the dirt to the side of the patio as they settled into some Adirondack chairs in a corner. "You tell people what you're working on, and then abandon it when it doesn't look right, and but everyone knows. And they act like you're a quitter or a failure. Some things just don't end up like you picture them."

"Dudes! Please don't sit on my installation!" a guy slurred when he walked by, "it's about emptiness. If you're sitting there, it's not empty." 

*

"Stewie, you know I love you, right?" Skye wedged herself between Leonard and Stuart, turning to face Stuart and throwing her arm around his shoulder. 

Stuart sighed as he leaned back against the bench they'd found, and raised an eyebrow. The whole evening was reminding him of days in Providence, in Oakland, past desert retreats, and a whole set of other times when _things_ didn't have to be complicated. He hadn't seen anything obviously sitting out, but he could smell pot thick in the air, and based on Skye's past retreats, there was probably a good selection of mood enhancers around. He kicked himself for suggesting the party at all. Why drive almost an hour to look at bad art, get aroused by people having sex on a bean bag chair, and not get high along with them? Skye had emailed him a week before, in town for her annual artist retreat, with an "open house" on Saturday night. It wasn't the first time she'd called him up when she was somewhere around LA, although typically when she needed a nonthreatening guy for a three way. He wondered how Leonard felt about group encounters, but quickly dismissed it. Much too soon to float the idea. 

"I do love you!" she shouted in his ear, even though they were away from the speakers, "Even if you are kind of a sellout douchebag. I'd still suck your dick, because I love you. But your friends have no idea how to take a trip and they're being annoying!"

"What'd they take?" Stuart asked her, pushing her back.

"I have no idea. Probably aspirin based on everything else about them!" she giggled, and licked his ear, then turned to Leonard, "Do you know how to swim?

"What exactly is going on?" Stuart asked, collecting her hands from his pants. 

"One of them is in the little fountain pool, and no one wants him to drown, but also no one wants to have to go in after him. It's not good naked," she murmured, hands wandering again.

"Okay, I'll go fish them out," Stuart said, standing up. 

"Why doesn't your bespectacled friend go fish them out," she said, tugging on Stuart's belt loops to get him to sit back down, "and you and I can go find someplace to catch up…"

"I'm going to be staying with my bespectacled boyfriend tonight," Stuart said pulling away from her and trying to give Leonard a sympathetic look. "What is going on with you tonight? You are handsy."

"Ehhhhhh, maybe there's some really good E floating around here somewhere," she shrugged with a sly smile. "Maybe we should find you some."

"Since when do you like pharmacology?" he asked.

"I dunno. Since when don't you?"

"Probably since I became a sellout douchebag." He removed her hands from his pants again. "Leonard, why don't WE go find Raj and Howard."

Leonard nodded, wide eyed. Yeah, a ranch filled with stoners and free love hadn't been the place to take him.

They came around the opposite side of the house and found Howard splashing in the what could have been called a very deep fountain or a very shallow pool, stripped down to his underwear, and giggling about finding a diamond mine, and trying to stuff water in his briefs. Raj was in the grass, all clothes lost, staring at his hands and softly crying. A couple of people sat nearby on the front porch, intermittently snickering, but also making sure they didn't hurt themselves. 

"Why don't you go find their clothes, and I will herd them toward the car?" Stuart suggested, sensing that Leonard might be less than useless in corralling two naked men.

Leonard nodded, still with wide eyed horror, and took off.

"Hey Howard," he said, cautiously avoiding splashes, "Whatcha doing?"

"I was talking to the girls, and trying to show them this new video app on my phone, but they got annoyed and tossed my phone in here. But it's okay, I found diamonds! Look!" He splashed a handful of water in Stuart's direction. "They're very hard to hold. But there's so many!"

"Right," Stuart said, having a pretty good idea of what Howard had been filming, and knowing exactly why they'd tossed his phone in the fountain, "And what about you, Raj?"

"I'm going to be alone forever. I've already met the love of my life, and I've mistreated her so much. I played video games for almost 20 hours last week! I could have at least worn my carpel tunnel brace. And I should be moisturizing more! Do you think she'll forgive me?" he asked, waving his hand in front of Stuart.

"Great, this is going to be an awesome trip home," Stuart said, figuring neither Raj or Howard would remember much of what he said the next day. "And what all did you guys have to eat tonight?"

"I had a beer and a couple of Jell-O shots. I dunno about Raj."

"I had a frit-a-ta," Raj over enunciated. "And I'm going to be alone forever!"

*

They guided Howard and Raj up the steps to Penny's apartment, where she and Bernadette were working on a bottle of wine following the movie. The guys had all but fallen asleep in the backseat as soon as Stuart handed them bottles of orange juice and turned the radio to classical music. 

"Should we take them to the hospital?" Bernadette fussed when Stuart dropped Howard onto the couch. Stuart raised his eyebrow back at her.

"I'm pretty sure it was just some psychedelics. They have very low toxicity relative to dose, so I don't think the hospital is going to do much, except give them water and monitor their blood pressure. You could just give them some fiber optic or LED toys, maybe something with some glitter, and they'll wear themselves out." 

It was Bernadette's turn to raise an eyebrow at Stuart. He just shrugged.

"Oh, do you think if we gave them toothbrushes they'd scrub the grout in my shower," Penny asked from the kitchen, "My brother used to do that, my mom just thought he wanted extra for his allowance, before we realized he was cooking meth." 

"They took acid, not speed," Stuart pointed out, "You should probably keep chemicals away from them…"

"I guess we could turn on a DVD and open another bottle of wine. I mean, if you're sure we shouldn't take them to the hospital," Bernadette said, and took another sip of wine. Stuart bit his tongue to keep from pointing out that much as he loved liquor, people tended get in lots more trouble drunk than high, and everyone was really making a bigger deal out of it than needed. She turned to Penny, "Maybe Bridges of Madison County, that's really long?"

"If you need help getting them out to the car or anything, just let us know," Leonard said, after the movie, as they backed out the door.

Leonard had barely flipped the lock on the door behind them as they entered his apartment when he pounced at Stuart, pinning one wrist behind Stuart's back and pushed him against the door, kissing him much more forcefully than usual.

"What are you doing, you just offered to help the girls with Raj and Howard, they could be over here any time," Stuart groaned when Leonard moved his head back, but keeping Stuart's arm pinned back.

"All day. All day I've been looking forward to getting you alone. And then Raj and Howard invite themselves along, and then that girl kept putting her hands in your pants…" he trailed off and opted to kiss Stuart again, pressing himself against Stuart's thigh. Stuart knew he was rapidly losing the ability to think coherently about the situation.

"So again, why did you offer to help get Howard and Raj to the car?" he asked, using his free hand to start working at Leonard's shirt.

"It's over two hours, we can do a lot in two hours," Leonard said, moving to nip at Stuart's neck. 

"And you're sure Sheldon's gone, right? He's not going to hire a car service or something, and come back early?" 

"No way," Leonard murmured into Stuarts's neck, "Amy promised him Sea World on Sunday morning if he stayed the whole time."

"You don't want to move to the bedroom?" Stuart groaned as Leonard pushed him onto the couch (decidedly not Sheldon's spot, as Stuart had learned during the temporary house guest orientation and emergency training a few nights earlier). Kneeling in front of Stuart, Leonard unfastened the button on Stuart's jeans, and pulled them down along with his boxers into a puddle around his ankles. He moved back to the couch, straddling Stuart's hips and kissed him again, slinking a hand under Stuart's shirt to raking his nails down his chest, trailing kisses his jawline, before sinking down to his knees in front of Stuart, pulling his shoes and pants the rest of the way off and tossing them to the side.

"Seriously, in the living room?" Stuart asked, raising an eyebrow at Leonard.

"This is the first time in years I haven't had to worry about Sheldon and his rules about the common area. Maybe next I'll change the thermostat!"

*

"Yes, oh god yes just like that," Stuart groaned, while Leonard gave him the most maddeningly slow blow job he could remember. He tried to approvingly rub the back of Leonard's neck, and was pretty sure it came off like a jerk pushing his partner's head down. "Gods yes, so good," he said, settling for rubbing one of Leonard's eyebrows with his thumb (catching himself immediately, and asking himself what the hell he was thinking, and who would want their eyebrow stroked).

He felt himself getting close, and tried to mumble something coherent to Leonard, when his sinuses started burning at the smell of … Lysol?

Leonard moved away and the cold air of the room swept over Stuart, he could hear Leonard coughing at the chemical intrusion. Instinctively covering himself with one hand while groping around for a pillow, anything to cover himself. His eyes stung when he tried to open them, but he scanned the room and focused on the problem. Sheldon with a canister of fucking Lysol, liberally spraying around Stuart and using his other hand to brace himself against Amy's shoulder.

Neither Leonard nor Stuart had heard the door open, or Sheldon unzipping his bag to dig out his travel disinfectant, but there he was, one lip curling up in a semi sneer, eye twitching rapidly. Amy on the other hand had a mix of gleeful curiosity, like she might offer to join in at any second.

"LEONARD! Why are you fellating Stuart on the couch?!" The edge in Sheldon's voice was razor sharp. Leonard had stumbled to his desk and continued to cough with increasing intensity, while fumbling around in the drawer in search of one of his inhalers. Sheldon continued without waiting to see if Leonard would find words. "Is this why you invited Stuart to come stay with us? Because you were trying to engage in coitus with him? I thought you only made hopeless offers to females in hopes of securing a sexual relationship!"

Leonard shook his head in disbelief, coughing subsiding, "WHY ARE YOU HERE? And why are you shooting me in the face with Lysol?"

"I tried to get him to do a cha-cha with me, and in the resulting struggle he tripped over my grandmother's walker and sprained his ankle," Amy chimed in from the door, picking up Stuart's pants and folding them over her arm. 

"I live here! Why are Stuart's naked buttocks touching the couch? Wasn't trying to hit you, but I can't help it if you have your face ON Stuart's genitals!"

"You're not supposed to be back until tomorrow afternoon!"

"What is going on with all the shouting?" Penny's voice rang out from across the hall. 

"Could I have my pants back?" Stuart tilted his head toward Amy, batting away Sheldon's wobbly advances to take the pillow from him to spray with disinfect.

"Just because I'm out of town doesn't render the roommate agreement void! And furthermore, you are going to have those cushion professionally cleaned! And anything else on which you engaged in carnal activities!" 

"Leonard was performing oral sex on Stuart on the couch," Amy helpfully filled in Penny and Bernadette as they crowded the front door. Stuart wondered if Raj and Howard were sobering up, and would be following along. 

"Wait, what?" Penny and Bernadette did a double take, rapidly glancing between Stuart, Leonard.

"Happy to explain, if you would just hand me my pants," Stuart said again.

"Oh these, sorry," Amy almost handed the jeans to him when Sheldon and Leonard pulled everyone's attention back to them.

"Stop with the damned Lysol! You're giving me an asthma attack from all the chemicals! Besides, it's my couch, I bought it and I let you sit on it, if I want to go down on my boyfriend on it, it's none of your business!"

"Did Leonard just say he has a boyfriend? Whose is Leonard's boyfriend?" Raj slurred from the hallway. 

"Are you saying you engage in other sex acts around the apartment?" Sheldon's eye fluttered rapidly. 

"No!" Stuart answered, worried about what might happen if Leonard pushed Sheldon any further.

"Maybe!" Leonard shouted at the same time. "Fine, no, but we could!"

"Whoaaaaaa, do you have sex at the comic book shop?" Howard popped up, bracing himself against the doorframe and Bernadette. "Bernie, I just had a great idea…"

"We don't have sex at my store," Stuart lied, then continued, "Seriously, my pants? Or maybe a blanket? I know I've gone on at least one date with almost half the people in this room, but I'm really not into exhibitionism."

"But the chick at the party said you were really good in bed, don't be embarrassed! Flaunt it if you got it!" Raj chimed in from behind Penny. She looked somewhat dismayed and stepped away, letting Raj face plant onto the floor.

"Really?" Amy licked her lips, presumably trying to be provocative. Penny snatched the pants away from Amy and tossed them in Stuart's direction.

"How long has this been going on?" Sheldon demanded, perched against his desk, unwilling to sit in his spot, in the vicinity of Stuart.

"A couple of weeks—" Leonard started 

"Wait, you two have been lying to us this whole time?" Penny piped up for the first time.

"No, not lying. We just … we didn't tell anyone, we wanted to make sure it was working out," Leonard looked at the floor. Stuart briefly wondered if Leonard was always going to carry a torch for Penny, if he was always going to try to be available to her. Then again, he'd probably trip over himself for some of his exes, too. That… seemed very dark, Stuart told himself, and turned his attention back to figuring out how to get his pants on, without moving the strategically placed pillow in his lap.

"Mmmm hmmm," Penny rolled her eyes. 

With his Lysol taken away, Sheldon huffed and tried to hop his way into his bedroom, with a comically exaggerated sigh until Amy came to help him. Penny let out an equally exasperated groan when she turned back to the hall and caught Howard re-buckling his belt and Bernadette straightening her dress. 

"What?! We're newlyweds!" Stuart heard Bernadette squeak. Raj was still on the floor, transfixed by the wood grain, and Stuart took the opportunity to slip his pants back on. 

"You know how you were worried about what to say to your friends?" Stuart asked, tossing Raj a pillow from Leonard's chair, since it looked like Bernadette and Howard had disappeared without him, "I don't think it's such an issue anymore."


	9. Alhambra

"Nice shirt."

Stuart looked up from his program to see who was walking by – it was the second day of Comic Con and there were thousands of great homemade tees walking around. He'd taken a pen to a blue shirt and recreated himself as a TARDIS. Hardly a unique or noteworthy shirt.

"Are you bigger on the inside, too?"

He made eye contact with Wonder Woman. Okay, not Lynda Carter, but not a bad costume, either. They'd been standing in the line to meet Ray Bradbury for ages, he'd been reading _Medicine for Melancholy_ to pass the time (he figured most people would bring _Fahrenheit_ , and he wanted to stand out. You know, for the three seconds he had to make an impression), and hadn't noticed her join the line, obviously some time ago based on how long the line was after her. 

"I'm sorry, that was a terrible line! I feel ridiculous! I seriously can't believe I said that out loud," she stammered. 

"It's fine. It's seriously not the worst thing anyone has said to me today," Stuart smiled, and extended his hand, "I'm Stuart."

"Jennifer." 

"I like your costume." Most girls who weren't super thin went with the 1940s costume, with the skirt. Maybe a more modern version, with bright blue skinny jeans. It took some serious guts to walk around in just a bathing suit all day.

"Thanks! Made it myself, obvs."

Their eyes met again, and they both looked away quickly, glancing to see if the line was inching any faster. 

"So, is this your first con?" she asked.

"No, this is … crap, this is my 13th. Fuck, when did I get old?!" Wonder Woman didn't look like she was more than 25, Stuart wondered if she was kicking herself for striking up conversation with an old man. 

"Damn! Old school! You were here before it exploded, that's pretty cool! What's your favorite memory?"

"Um, I dunno. I guess, much like with Doctors, you never forget your first. So my first – that was 1996. I'd just moved to LA, and did a road trip down here with some friends. That was pretty awesome. Or I guess 2004 when I got to have the retailer sticker."

"Yeah? You're in the biz?"

"Yeah, I own a comic book store in Pasadena," he pulled one of his cards out of the back of his name badge. He'd spent hours scribbling contact info on the back of napkins back in … 2006? Not making that mistake again. "The owner was retiring, and I bought it from him in 2003."

"Get out, that's so cool!" her eyes sparkled. He wondered if they were colored contacts, or if her eyes really were that bright shade of blue. Probably contacts to match the costume. "I live in San Gabriel!"

"Well, if you ever want to spend like 45 minutes in traffic to go 8 miles, you should come by on Wednesdays – that's my big UPS delivery day, so I stay open late for new comics.

She smiled and tucked the card into her program guide as the line finally started picking up.

*

He felt guilty for not recognizing her at new comics night two weeks later. It was when she was checking out and he caught the sparkle in her eyes again.

"Wond-erfer! Jennifer! Wonder Woman Jennifer!" he stammered, putting her comics in a bag.

"Yeah, I guess I'm a little different without my lasso of truth," she winked. She'd traded in the shimmery leotard for a Save the TaTas tee shirt and jeans.

"Wow, I didn't really think you'd drive all the way over here," he crossing, 'Don't stare at her chest,' he added to himself, 'Stop staring at her chest.'

"Well, it occurred to me that there were dozens and dozens of wholly inappropriate things about our costumes that I didn't get a chance to say to you a couple weeks ago. For instance, hey, would you like to come take a ride in my invisible airplane?" She cocked one hip at him and put on a sultry pout.

"Or, ..." Stuart drew a blank when he looked up from his shoes. 'Stop staring! Nothing good can happen here.'

"You know, some people say breast awareness is the first step in breast _cancer_ awareness, still, it's socially impolite to stare at my rack, no matter how fabulous it may be," she laughed. "Besides, if you were going to leer, I would have thought it would be much easier to do so in my Wonder Woman outfit."

"Sorry," he said, glancing down to the floor again. "I mean, I lost a testicle to a funny lump in high school, but I don't wear a tee shirt about it, because I don't want people staring at my groin."

"Although, one in eight guys doesn't lose a testicle to cancer," she pointed out, peering over the counter. "Also, if you did wear a tee shirt it would be easier to leer inappropriately if you wore skinny jeans. This is a really weird conversation."

"Maybe we should have dinner sometime and we can talk about other kinds of cancers people get. My grandfather had pancreatic cancer." 

"Oh, I'm so sorry to hear that, I hear it's really terrible," her tone softened.

"Yeah, that was really a lot less funny when I said it out loud," Stuart winced, "Cancer jokes are hard."

"Oh!" she covered her mouth and giggled at the terrible, terrible direction the conversation was heading. "Yes, dinner! We can talk about other things which are hard. NOT LIKE THAT!" She blushed when she realized the double entendre. 

"This will be fun," he said, advancing register tape and writing his cell phone and email address down. 

*

No matter how many relationships he'd been in, Stuart was still amazed that anyone wanted to be with him. When he'd leaned in for a tentative kiss after their first date, he'd wanted to ask "Are you sure?" And when she'd flopped back panting against the pillows, the first time he'd gone down on her, he rested his head on her stomach and wanted to say "Awww, you're putting me on." (The first time she'd dropped to her knees in front of him, pulling him into the storage room at the store after he'd closed one night, he had actually said "You don't have to do this." "I know I don't have to. I want to," she responded.) When they'd gone a step further, and he gripped her soft hips while she lowered herself down on him and whispered in his ear that he was amazing, he wanted to say "You must not have done this much." And when she pulled him close and asked him to stay the night, he wanted to say "But why, why me?" So now, seven months in, he'd stopped asking why, and just embraced it. Her. Them. At least until she realized that LA was full of better looking, richer, smarter, men, any of whom would be thrilled to be with her.

"I want to do an art project with the kids at school," Jennifer said one Saturday morning while they lazed in her bed watching tivoed Doctor Who before Stuart had to leave to open the store, "Our art budget keeps getting cut, and we never get to do anything anymore." She stretched out on top of the blanket on her stomach, with her feet next to him at the head of the bed.

"Stop moving your head around!" Stuart said leaning against the headboard, with his omnipresent sketchbook and a plain old pencil he'd found under her bed, trying to capture the way the sunlight streamed in the windows and lit up her hair, falling over her shoulders. "What sort of project do you want to do?"

She stuck out her tongue before turning back to the TV. "I don't know. Our paint budget was totally slashed this year, but I was thinking I'd hit a craft store, and buy some, and I saw this cool tutorial online about adding glitter to paint, that looked like fun since the kids have been so stressed about the STAR tests and it would be a special end of the year treat."

"Glitter is the herpes of the craft world. It is _never_ part of art."

"Glitter is awesome," she said, rolling over and throwing a pillow at him.

"Hey!" he mocked indignation, "stop moving! You're ruining this great picture!" 

"Oh my god, you've been drawing my ass for the last 45 minutes!"

"It's a nice ass!"

*

Somewhere between teasing her about glitter and pulling her into his lap to discuss how much he enjoyed looking at her nice ass, Stuart agreed to help her set up her grand glitter painting project during lunch one day, and stick around for paint distribution and clean up after.

"Here you go, have a smock," she said, handing him an oversized tee shirt with a cut down the back, when the office helper dropped him off in her classroom during lunch.

"What is this?" he asked.

"A smock. So you don't get paint on your clothes."

"But it's tempera. It's washable. And a smock? And also, a paint stained wardrobe is a rite of passage in art school."

"That's great, but this is second grade, and we wear smocks, including adults to set a good example for the children. So put on a smock and come help me divide paint into cups and mix in the glitter!"

*

"I think it was actually painful for me to watch how those kids beat up the poor innocent paint brushes," Stuart said when all the kids were dismissed. There'd been minimal fights over who had the best paint colors and remarkably little paint on the floor. There was a great deal of magenta and glitter in his hair when he'd stepped in to try and show the kids proper brush technique.

"Again, they're in second grade," she chuckled, "I'm guessing human development classes weren't required for your degree." She leaned one of the tiny chairs back against the classroom sink. "Do you want me to try and wash some of that out here, or do you want to wait until you get home?"

"Here, I don't want to get tempera all over my towels. And no, no child development wasn't required. The closest I've come is with my sister's kids. And I see them like once a year. But in fairness, I'm guessing you didn't have to take an entire semester on gouache to get a teaching certificate."

"Yeah, I suppose," she said, scrubbing at his head with hand soap, "This isn't working at all. Why don't you come to my place, and I'll sacrifice a towel, for the sake of my awesome boyfriend not having glittery pink hair at work tomorrow."

"That's very noble of you," he said, slyly pinning her against the counter with one hand, and grabbing a bottle of glitter with the other, "but I think if I have to suffer the stigma of having glitter in my hair for a week, so do you." She playfully struggled against him while he sprinkled glitter over her head like a salt shaker.

*

"When is your lease up?" she asked, when they'd emerged from the shower, dried off, and curled up with a blanket on the couch, plenty of glitter still shimmering in their hair. 

"Huh?" he said, shifting on one elbow to reach for the bottle of wine. "At the end of May I think. Why?"

Truthfully, he knew exactly when his lease was up, and his landlord had already told him that he would not be renewing the lease. Even after almost a year together, felt awkward telling her when things were bothering him, like she might realize he was a terrible candidate for a boyfriend, and head off to find someone who was less broke, had less of a receding hairline, less unsure of himself. 

"Well, my lease here is up at the end of June, and I was wondering what you'd think of getting a place together? I mean, we spend a lot of our time together, and we could share utilities and maybe find a place halfway between your store and my school, so we could cut back driving time..." she tentatively tilted her head back in the crook of his neck, trying to gauge if he was about to bolt.

He planted a kiss on her temple, trying to hide the panic running through his head. He'd all but hit on Penny just weeks prior, when Jen realized that his cousin's wedding coincided with the school's spring parent conferences, and Stuart was desperate for a date, to avoid the wrath of his Aunt Peggy and her fortune-telling/matchmaker girlfriend.

"That sounds great." 

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. On one condition."

"What's that?"

"If you expect me to come help with your glittery craft projects, I expect to see the Wonder Woman costume a little more often."

"Oh really? You expect that?" She playfully cocked an eyebrow and swatted his arm.

"Mmmhmm," he said, pulling her in for a kiss. "I have glitter. In my hair. _All_ of my hair. I think it's the least you could do."

She rolled over to face him, "Well, I'll see what I can do about that." 

*

Moving in together and splitting living expenses came at the perfect time: People were switching to digital comics, cutting back on movie memorabilia, and Stuart had felt horrible at having to call a staff meeting (all four of them) after Comic Con and explain that he was picking up more hours at the store because he wasn't required to pay himself minimum wage, and he'd write everyone letters of reference about what great employees they'd been, and he wished them well on their future endeavors, and he hoped that they'd still think of The Comics Center of Pasadena when they needed a new comic and some social interaction.

He wallowed in self-pity for hours that night, sitting on the patio swilling cheap tequila and taking long slow drags off a loosie (and coughing, and cursing quitting smoking when he'd been broke in Oakland), and wondering how it was he couldn't even sell $80 a day in comics to make payroll. Never mind covering the cost of future inventory, keeping the power on to run the cash register, or even the increase in gas to get from their new apartment to work. 

*

"Jennifer?" he called out, opening the door to the darkened apartment, dragging his feet across the carpet. He didn't recall her saying she was going out that night, but what difference did it make. Fridays and Saturdays the store was open for 11 straight hours, with no help, no lunch break, and as it turned out, no police intervention when a couple of teenagers tried to do some LARPing in the store with merchandise and cracked a window. All he wanted to do was flop into bed and sleep ... until he got to repeat the whole thing the next day.

"Why hello handsome stranger," a voice came out when he opened the bedroom door. Just as his eyes started to adjust to the dim lights, the stereo came on and he could make out Jennifer fiddling with a remote control, "Wait, no, the lights aren't working! Go back! Enter again!"

"Jen, what are you doing?" The lights suddenly came on, casting the room with a couple of spot lights, and highlighting Jennifer in her full Wonder Woman costume, the bed decked out with a new WW comforter.

"A ha! Got it! I wanted to surprise you! You've been so down lately I thought it would be fun to maybe pull out the costumes. What do you say, want to take a ride in my invisible airplane?" She winked at the terrible line, while pulling him closer by his belt buckle. 

"Do we have to do this tonight?" Stuart asked, as she worked one hand under his tee shirt and the other hand at undoing his jeans. He felt disembodied for a minute, wondering what was possessing him to say no to sex.

She pulled back and looked a little hurt. "No, of course we don't _have to_ , I just thought it would be fun. It's been like a month since we had sex and you seemed to like it last time I pulled out the costume--" she trailed off, and stood up to walk around the room, turning off the lights and stopping the music by hand, not trusting the remote control. Stuart laid back and kicked off his shoes. It couldn't have been a month, they'd only been living together for two and a half. 

*

His parents and younger brother flew to LA for Thanksgiving. Stuart had already decided he could barely afford the three days he planned to close the store so he and Jennifer could drive to and from Phoenix to see her family at Christmas, and there was no way he wasn't going to be open for Black Friday sales. 

"Come on, it will be fun!" his mother implored over Skype, "You look tired, and I want to make sure you're eating!"

"Yeah," his father jumped into the frame, "we hardly ever see you anymore! You can't say that it's too expensive to drive from Pasadena to Santa Monica. And come on, you and Jennifer just moved in together. You sure there's nothing you want to be telling us…"

"I'm positive, Dad. You're getting ahead of yourself."

So they gathered at his Uncle Bob's house. Jennifer helped his aunt, and the quiet whispers between _everyone_ as to whether or not there was going to be an announcement over dinner was not missed by Stuart or Jennifer.

"So Stuart, how's business?" his uncle asked as they sat around the table.

"Um..." Stuart pushed his mashed potatoes around on his plate, "It's kinda rough right now. A lot of people are switching to digital, and I have a lot of back inventory that's not really moving."

"Maybe you could set up an online store?" his mom offered.

"I barely have time to run the physical store, much less an online store."

"What about doing more book illustrations? Your cousin Melissa says the books you made for her baby were the prettiest books she'd ever seen, maybe you could find a way to hook up with a writer and illustrate books?" Aunt Sally proffered.

"Yeah, again, I'm really busy with the store…"

"But if it sounds like the store isn't that busy," Uncle Bob interrupted, "so you could probably draw while you're at work, right?"

Stuart smiled half-heartedly, "It's sort of hard to keep picking things up and putting them down like that…"

"Jennifer," Stuart's father jumped in, "is he always this negative about everything?"

Jennifer cast Stuart a sympathetic eye. "I mean, it is really hard out there. We're having budget cuts at school, so when I used to be able to get things done during the day, now I have to take a turn for library duty, and recess duty, and cafeteria duty, so I understand not being able to get as much done during the day as it seems like you should be able to get done…"

His parents nodded. His mother had gone from being one of two full-time art teachers at one school, but had been offered an early retirement package, and the other teacher had been cut to half-time, and was now responsible for covering three schools. His father taught high school history, which wasn't particularly at risk, but his Quiz Bowl and Civics Clubs both had funding cuts.

"You know Stuart, it's hard to watch plans and dreams not work out, if you need someone to talk to, there's a new psychiatry practice that just moved into the office next to mine at the medical park," his uncle said, "I bet I could get you a professional associate discount, for a couple of sessions, if you wanted…"

Stuart sipped his wine. "I don't need a shrink, I need people to buy comic books," he said forcefully, "And maybe a few more hours in the day, not fewer hours from taking time out to sit on a couch and talk about my feelings."

*

"Are you going to do the costume party at the store for New Years?" she asked over dinner a week later.

"I suppose," he said listlessly pushing his chicken around. 

"Maybe we could coordinate outfits?" she suggested, refilling the wine glasses. 

"What did you have in mind?"

"Well, a coworker has been teaching me to knit, and I was thinking I could make you a Doctor Who scarf, and we could go as Four and Sarah Jane?"

"Yeah, that would be cool," he forced a smile – not that it wasn't a good idea, far better than pulling out his standby Dalek hat. But, everything that took energy just seemed forced this year. 

*

He'd debated closing the store for President's Day. Mondays were slow, Jennifer had the day off work, and had suggested that if he did take the day off they could drive to the beach and relax a little. He'd gone back and forth, wondering if extra people would show up, with the day off work, and ultimately decided to chance it. A gamble that had not paid off. 

He dropped his bag inside the door and wandered into the kitchen, he could smell Chinese food, and Beatles was playing on the stereo. He found Jennifer, surrounded by boxes in the dining room, sorting classroom supplies from Stuart's supplies in one of the storage cabinets.

"What are you doing?"

She looked up from the cabinet.

"Oh, hey hon. I'm moving out." Her voice cracked, and she quickly turned back.

"Um …" Stuart's stomach flipped over, "What? Why?" He wondered if he'd forgotten a birthday … their anniversary wasn't for months. And Jennifer wasn't exactly the high strung type to break up over a missed calendar event…

"Stuart, I love you so much—"

"So you're leaving me?"

"I can't keep watching you sink lower and lower and not even try to get help. I want you to be healthy. I want you to want to be healthy. You can't keep using the 'I don't have insurance' excuse – I'd pay for it, your parents would pay for it, that doctor at your uncle's office was even going to give you a professional discount. But we can't make you go, and we can't make you talk about whatever you're feeling. But I can't keep hoping, it's taking me down and I just can't keep up with the one sided relationship."

Stuart crossed his arms defensively and furled his eyebrows. 

"How would you like to be in my shoes, with your business crumbling around you? I work 70 hours a week! I don't have time to even try to pick up some art commissions on the side."

"Yes, you work 10 hours a day, and sleep for 13 hours a night. You hardly eat anything! Maybe if you would just _try_ Prozac you'd have an appetite again, and then you wouldn't be so tired. And if you were awake more we could do things together. And instead of focusing on how crappy business is, you wouldn't immediately dismiss any ideas to drum up sales."

Stuart huffed. "What, so you just want me to take a pill and be a little happy bot? Just wipe out all my emotions with chemicals?"

She glared. "What emotions?! Tell me one emotion you've had besides tired and sad in the past 5 months? You are one of the smartest, and absolutely most talented person I've ever met, and you don't even see that in yourself anymore."

*

"Should I sleep on the couch, or something?" Stuart asked, standing in the bedroom door.

"No, you don't have to," Jennifer flung back the blankets on the bed, "No sense in screwing up your back."

"Where are you moving?" he asked, crawling in beside her.

"Back to San Gabriel. Close to school and all."

"You could stay here, I could move my things out. I mean, I can't afford this place on my own," Stuart said, staring at the ceiling.

"Thanks, but no. I don't think I could keep coming back here, you know?"

"I do love you, you know—"

"I know. I love you, too."

"I mean, if it means that much to you, I could go see the doctor. I just don't see how it's going to help the economy…"

"You're missing the point. I want you to go, but I want you to go for you."

Stuart laid there, wide awake, as her breathing turned shallower and slowly turned to gentle snores. Where was he going to go, he was barely bringing in $400 a month. He was 36, far too old to go back to a group house with a bunch of college students. He could inflate an air mattress in the back room of the store, it would cut his commuting time. It wasn't like he really needed a kitchen, either – Jennifer was right, he never cooked anything. Plus, he could keep his art supplies closer, and maybe work on a piece or two during the perpetual down time in the store.

Yup, living in his store was the perfect solution.


	10. Chapter 5

"Are we going to have to rearrange the rooms at Comic Con again?" Sheldon asked, taking the last spring roll from the spread on the coffee table. 

"What do you mean?" Stuart asked, Stuart looked up from his carton of fried rice, Comic Con was just a few weeks away, anyone who didn't have a hotel booked already was probably going to be camping. He appreciated that Leonard was trying to pull Stuart into his group of friends, but listening to Sheldon's plans and theories wore a little thin.

"Well, in the past it's always been easy to book hotel rooms, Leonard and I would share one room, and Howard and Raj would share another," Sheldon stated the obvious, "Then Howard had to throw a monkey wrench in it by getting married, so he and Bernadette were going to share a room, Amy and Penny were going to share a room, and Raj was going to have his own room. But now Bernadette and Penny aren't coming, so Raj and Howard are sharing again, and Amy is going to stay with her cousin, but that means she has to drive separately in order to get from her cousin's house downtown, and the reservations for those two rooms have been canceled. Now, presumably you and Leonard will want to share a room to engage in some sort of carnal activity. If Howard and Raj still plan to share a room, where am I supposed to sleep? And, what if you and Leonard end your dalliance before Comic Con? I mean, Leonard doesn't have a particularly good history when it comes to long term relationships--"

"I'm right here!" Leonard paused from picking at his lo mien to glare at Sheldon.

"Yes, we know, Leonard, you announced your arrival when you came in with the bag of food. Anyway, what I'm saying is your romantic attachments tend to be somewhat fleeting. What if you and Stuart break up in the next few weeks? I can pull up the formulas, the odds are that this isn't going to last much longer. Anyway, if Leonard stays in whatever hovel Stuart has already reserved, who is going to be my roommate?"

"Actually—" Stuart started to chime in. Stuart had already promised to take his nephew, his sister had called him and asked if Stuart wouldn't mind if Bryan flew down for a long weekend. He'd already booked a room at a hostel downtown, for the poverty-stricken-college-student-at-Comic-Con experience. 

"Wait, but then you'll have your own room," Penny said, sitting cross legged in Leonard's chair. "Isn't that good?"

"My own room? Do you realize what number of things could go wrong staying in a hotel room by yourself? What if there were a fire and I were trapped, and no one knew to look for me? Besides, a double occupancy is by far the most cost effective situation." 

"Um, not that anyone asked me, but I've already—" Stuart tried to jump in again. He wondered if this was going to be his thing with Leonard's friends, that no one actually wanted to listen to him.

"My offer still stands to share a room," Amy chimed in, leaning closer to Sheldon, "then I don't have to stay on my cousin's sofa bed."

"Bernadette, are you sure you wouldn't like a fun weekend at the beach? And then you and Howard would get a room together, and Rajesh and I could share a room," Sheldon said, leaning away from Amy's advances. 

"Sorry Sheldon," Bernadette said, "I don't want to take that Friday off work." 

"A shame," Amy chimed in, if we could all go I had a great idea for a group costume, as Jem and the Holograms from the classic 1980s animated cartoon."

"That's great, because—" Stuart felt a tug on his sleeve, and looked over to see Raj motioning to lean in.

"Suggest we get a suite, and Sheldon can sleep in the living room," Raj whispered in his ear. 

"Why don't you say something," Stuart looked confused, "Clearly no one cares if I have something to say."

Raj shook his head, "I got antibiotics when I went to the dentist yesterday, I can't have any alcohol."

Stuart nodded. "Raj has an idea!" he said somewhat forcefully. "He suggested we all get a suite. But it doesn't really matter, because I already have reservations, I'm taking my nephew."

"A suite would never work anyway," Sheldon said. "Unequal bathroom ratio, five people to two bathrooms would never work out."

"That could be a good idea," Leonard said, tapping his fork against his plate, contemplating logistics. "Or maybe adjoining rooms?"

"No," Stuart said flatly.

"Why not?" Leonard furled his brow.

"Because I don't hate my nephew! I'm not locking him in a room with Sheldon!" 

*

"So, what's going on with you?" His psychiatrist flipped her notebook to a fresh page.

"Not much," Stuart shrugged, "Finally got a new computer for the store, it's so much better. It can run the latest version of Quicken, and I updated the customer database so now I can generate targeted emails, like for people's birthdays." He continued to prattle on, about the store, the new staff he was hiring, about a date with Leonard, about the new book contracts, until the clock beeped at 50 minutes. 

"Well, that's our time," she said, tapping her pen against the page.

"Oh, okay. So, I guess I'll see you in two weeks? No! Wait! Not two weeks! That's Comic Con, I'm going to be in San Diego that weekend. Three weeks?"

"Actually Stuart, I think you're in a really good place, and I don't think we need to continue with twice-monthly talk therapy sessions, and we can cut back to just medication management. Why don't I put you down for 12 weeks from now, just pop by for 15 minutes and we'll make sure that everything is still working for you." She handed him the appointment card. October. October was ages away.

"Wait, but? What? I'm just done? Just like that?"

"Stuart, it's been over a year. You just spent the entire session talking about your support networks, you've been increasingly resourceful when you face unexpected challenges, like your apartment situation a few weeks ago, or last time we saw each other when your computer was making that funny noise. When we first met you said you were handwriting receipts for people because your printer was broken, now you look at your finances and go out secure new equipment for your business."

"But … but what if something goes wrong?"

"Well, then pick up the phone and call me, and we can set up an appointment. I've had the same phone number for the past 15 years, you don't have to worry about me going anywhere."

"Okay. So, 12 weeks?"

"Twelve weeks. Have fun at Comic Con."

He let himself out of the nondescript office, and stood under the awning out front to fumble with his umbrella. Since when did it rain in July? Standing at the bus stop, his thoughts swirled around him. Sure, she probably wouldn't stop the sessions if she really thought he was going to immediately fall back into the same old bad patterns, after all he'd always paid on time (well, mostly his uncle paid her, and presumably on time), so it wasn't like he wasn't a good stable client to keep around. Still, what was he going to do with his Saturday mornings before the store opened? 

*

"How are we going to distribute people amongst the cars?" Sheldon looked like he was on the verge of a breakdown trying to distribute people in cars. Sheldon, Leonard, Stuart, Bryan, Raj, Howard, and Amy. Stuart swore it was a no brainer, Leonard, Stuart and Bryan in one car, Raj and Howard in Raj's car, and Amy and Sheldon in Amy's. Still, Sheldon continued to play with the little avatars on his smart board, dragging them around and discussing Raj's small bladder and distance between rest stops.

Apparently Sheldon was catching on to Amy's advances, and it was making him increasingly uncomfortable. On the one hand, Stuart felt bad for Amy: She was smart and funny and pretty, in a quirky sort of way, and for whatever reason wanted to be a relationship with Sheldon Cooper, and clearly hadn't expected it to be as one sided as it ended up for her. (One night, after a couple of glasses of wine while everyone sat on the roof looking at some passing satellite, he considered looking Charlie up, seeing if he'd turned out to be ace. And see if he had any ideas to pass on to Sheldon. Stuart blinked back to reality: they'd never been particularly good friends, and certainly not after Stuart knocked up Cassie. How would you open a conversation with "Hey, remember that time you didn't put out, and your girlfriend came to me, and I got her pregnant? Just curious, are you asexual? I'm in a very similar situation again, and I was wondering if you had any pointers for the woman's boyfriend…").

On the other hand, Sheldon tried to horn in on Stuart and Leonard often enough, that sometimes Stuart couldn't bring himself to care that Amy made Sheldon uncomfortable. Stuart tried to suggest they go to his apartment more often, particularly if the night was looking like it would end in sex. But there was also no denying that Leonard had a better couch, better TV, better internet, and a much, much better bed. Still, it rarely seemed worth it when Sheldon's voice floated through the wall "Are you close to climax? I'm having a hard time getting to sleep with my noise canceling headphones on." Or after the second emergency drill. And especially not after he woke up to find Sheldon trying to tap a vein. So, Stuart couldn't bring himself to be too upset when Amy made Sheldon uncomfortable.

"Of course, the five of us could ride in Leonard's car. With the extra weight we'd suffer fuel economy, but it would still be more efficient than three cars. Oooh, if we put the luggage in Rajesh's car, that should just about even out. Now that it's settled, let's go over an emergency preparedness drill and then take the quiz and we'll be on our way."

"Sheldon, I have to drive," Amy chimed in, "If I'm staying Santee with my cousin, I'm going to need my car."

"Uncle Stuart," Bryan leaned over and whispered in Stuart's ear, looking downright pained at the way the weekend was kicking off, "Could I just ride with the other guys? I mean, we'll all get to San Diego, right? So, I don't really have to squish in the backseat with you and Dr. Fowler? Please?"

Eventually they did pile into Raj's car (Raj, Howard, and Bryan), and Amy's car (Amy, Sheldon, Leonard, Stuart) and set off. 

"You know Stuart, your nephew seems sort of rude, the way he kept messing with his phone while we were going over the safety drills. He'll have only himself to blame if there's an accident and he doesn't know what to do," Sheldon admonished from the front seat.

"He's 17, of course he's attached to his phone. And he's been riding in cars for all 17 of those years. I think he'll be fine."

"Let's play a game!" Amy said, trying to diffuse the tension. "How about Counter Factuals?"

"NO!" Leonard shouted. "Let's just turn on the radio."

*

By the first rest stop, Raj, Howard, and Bryan were laughing and having a good time.

By the time they reached the hotel, Bryan asked if they can take a trip to Tijuana, since they're "in the neighborhood." 

"Tijuana is not 'in the neighborhood,'" Stuart said, collecting his overnight bag from the car. "I told your mom that I would take you to see the movie previews and buy comic books, not run the risk of you being kidnapped by some drug cartel-"

"Actually, the odds of being a victim of violent crime in Mexico have been blown out of proportion by the media," Sheldon chimed in, "the crime rate is comparable to that in Philadelphia."

"Do you want to go to Tijuana, Sheldon?" Stuart glared at him.

"Oh heavens, no. Of course not. I didn't bring my passport and the lines to return are supposedly very long and I don't want to miss the screening of Captain America 2!"

*

"So, do you have any special sessions you want to see?" Stuart asked as they settled into their room. 

"Just that comic book movie," Bryan said, tapping away at his phone. "I'm sure whatever sessions you're going to will be fun. By the way, if you wanted to camp out, that's cool with me. Whatever, you know, but we don't have to stay in the nice hotel if like, the store is still having problems."

"The store is fine." Stuart glanced around the room, it could hardly be considered "nice" – the twin beds were tiny and old, there was no air conditioning, no screens on the windows (he recalled Comic Con of 2003, when he'd woken up with a stranger he met at the masquerade ball and two pigeons in his room), and Bryan hadn't actually gone down the hall to the bathroom yet, which would probably be an illuminating experience. "Did your mother say something to you?" 

Bryan shook his head quickly. "No, just, you know, offering."

"Sure," Stuart deadpanned, raising an eyebrow, "Well, if you see something you want to go to, feel free. But I can't imagine who wouldn't be interested in a seminar on interesting display ideas."

"Sure, sounds like fun."

*

Friday night seemed to turn into some sort of weird Pasadena meetup that Stuart didn't really understand. What was the point in coming to the biggest comic book event in the world … to hang out with the same people you see three times a week at home? He'd run into a couple of art school buddies at the portfolio review who were organizing an informal reunion at a dive bar on the north side of town. 

Saturday night he couldn't come up with a reason to avoid Leonard's friends any longer (and was thanking any deity he could think of that the other Comic Center regulars had found something else to do that night), so he and Bryan squeezed into a booth at a taco place that was trying far too hard to be a hole in the wall. The guys were all still in their coordinated Avengers outfits, and abuzz with chatter about the day.

"The left half is original comic book Avengers, the right side is the movie Avengers," Howard explained, when Bryan asked why they had two costumes sewn together. Bryan raised a weary eyebrow, and didn't ask any more questions. 

"So, Stuart, would you or any of your friends from the flophouse where you live be interested in participating in my neuroimaging study on how narcotics impact the human brain. I can't get IRB approval to ask people to take heroin and then do a PET scan, but I think that if people who were already using heroin were to show up…"

"I don't currently, nor have I ever, lived in a flophouse!" Stuart said pointedly. "And I don't use heroin!"

"What if you were to get half of the compensation in advance…" Amy trailed off.

"No!"

Amy shrugged and turned to Bryan. "So, what events did you attend today?" Amy asked, trying to pull him out of his iPhone bubble. 

"Um, I went to a movie screening. After that Uncle Stuart was at a session for retailers, so I went to the zoo."

The table fell silent. Stuart didn't want to make eye contact with anyone, for fear of them unleashing their fury on him.

"You went to the zoo? Instead of Comic Con?" Sheldon stuttered. "Why would you do that?"

"I uh … I didn't have any other sessions I wanted to go see?" Stuart could tell Bryan knew things were about to get very bad, very fast for him.

"So you just … didn’t go?" Raj followed up, sipping a margarita. "Who gets tickets to all three days and then just _doesn't go_?"

"I don't understand what the big deal is…" Bryan trailed off to tap out another message on his phone. 

"Give me that infernal phone," Sheldon said, snatching the phone away from Bryan. "I hate actual social interaction as much as the next person, but what online conversation could be more important than Comic Con?"

Sheldon scrolled through the messages before looking up "Who is Bubbe and why does she care where Stuart keeps his clothes?"

"What?!" Stuart looked up and did a double take between Bryan and Sheldon before snagging the phone from Sheldon and flipping through the messages. 

"I'm sorry Uncle Stuart. Bubbe offered to get me a 12-string, and Mom said my band could practice in the garage if I came to Pasadena and then told them if you weren't eating, or if you didn't have furniture or something." 

In 140 character increments where dozens of questions about the state of Stuart's store (how many sales had he made on Thursday; how much tie in merchandise did he have for those popular sci-fi shows like Farscape? ["How did none of you know that Farscape has been off the air for YEARS. You have no business judging me!"], his apartment (did he have furniture, like a dresser; was he using a futon for a couch and a bed?) his refrigerator (how many sources of protein did he have in the house; was there more than ice and baking soda in the freezer?), and about himself (did his skin look particularly sallow; did he have any symptoms of scurvy?). 

Stuart sighed. It wasn't unwarranted for his family to question how he was doing. He'd certainly hid things from them before, particularly after he deemed them too nosy after the whole break up with Jennifer. He wouldn't have even bothered telling his sister about the time he was living in his store if he hadn't had to explain why his car had been towed for not moving for two weeks. Still, sending a 17 year old to do recon by bribing him with a guitar? Then, Stuart had an idea. He handed the phone back to Bryan.

"If you can convince Bubbe I'm going to start doing offering myself up for medical research studies, I'll get you a fake ID and split the proceeds 80-20."

"70-30?" Bryan gave him a sly smile.

"You're getting a guitar, practice space, and a fake ID. 90-10 would be generous!"

*

"Do you really think it was fair to leave your nephew at the hands of Sheldon, Raj, and Howard to hear the complete history of Comic Con?" Leonard asked. They'd slipped away from the group and headed for one of the constant after parties that one of Stuart's friends had mentioned. Leonard handed Stuart a plastic cup from the nearby bar, then joining Stuart in rolling up the legs on his jeans and dipping his feet in the pool. 

Stuart shrugged and sipped at his drink. "If he hadn't come we could have messed with Sheldon's hotel assignments, and we could have a room together. We could be having sex right now."

"Still, it seems … opportunistic, to use him to get money from your parents," Leonard frowned.

"My parents spent almost two hundred thousand dollars for me to be told I'm a good artist, and then to learn how to run a successful business into the ground. I think they're used to me being an opportunistic mooch."

They sat in silence for a while, watching other attendees walk past the pool, high fiving each other over autographs and trinkets amassed the convention. Eventually Stuart broke the silence. 

"I hired a new manager for the store. So I'm only going to be working Wednesday nights now. I have enough freelance contracts lined up that I don't have to worry about taking home a salary from the store."

"Are you selling the store?" Leonard looked worried.

"No. Not yet anyway. I want to – just looking at it reminds me of what a crappy couple of years I've been having. I was so good at selling solar panels, I figured I'd be really good at selling something I liked. But it didn't really work out that way," he shrugged and took another drink. "But, I have been making exactly the wrong choice at every major crossroad in my life for the past fifteen years, so I thought I'd try the opposite of what I want to do. If I want to sell the store, I shouldn't, because if I do, there's going to be a huge rebound in the economy, and I'll have sold off a second really great idea."

"You know that's a logical fallacy, right? Post hoc--"

Stuart glared, "Yes, I took philosophy in college, too. Fine, I'm not selling it because I'll want to have a fall back in a couple of years when all my ideas dry up again."

"You don't know that your ideas are all going to dry up," Leonard said. "Maybe all these book contracts will be your big break."

"It's all cyclical. Seventeen years ago, almost to the day, I was sitting by a significantly less nice pool uptown, and I had a great boyfriend and thought my career was just about to take off. Fourteen years ago I was in the same stupid hostel I'm staying in tonight, and I was single and homeless and thought it was the pinnacle of life experience that was going to give me a fantastic tortured artist edge. Two years ago I was back in the hostel, and single, and homeless again. It's the same things, over and over again, with a different cast."

"Where does that put you now?" Leonard asked.

Stuart paused and looked over, Leonard was fidgeting and staring into his drink. Going back over what he just said, no wonder. Stuart had just implied that he assumed this was going to end as badly as all his other relationships.

"I guess I'm back to having a great boyfriend and career prospects," Stuart said. 

"Maybe that's the circle, maybe I'm back at the beginning and it's time for different things… Although, perhaps not the smartest boyfriend now that I think about it for a minute," he added after sitting silently for a moment. 

"Hey!" Leonard said indignantly, "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Sheldon has Bryan back at your hotel. That leaves a whole empty hostel room available. Call Sheldon and tell him to be sure and talk about the issues with fire code in 2006, that will buy us at least an hour. Two if he gives his entire safety lecture."

"Bryan definitely needs to hear the safety speech," Leonard nodded, pulling out his phone as he scrambled to his feet.


	11. Epilogue

Flipping the sign for the first time on Monday, he actually thought maybe Pasadena wasn't going to be anything like LA. It was a little more laid back, a little geekier… He had a slow and steady stream of people for the soft opening (he had a whole geek-tacular grand opening party planned for the following weekend). Mostly former regulars, a few people who mentioned they were new to town. Wil Wheaton ("Call me Wil," he'd said. "Nope, don't think that's going to happen, Wil Wheaton," Stuart responded) even came by to offer congratulations on buying the store. 

"Oh what fresh Hell is this, Leonard? What happened to the comic book store?" His final two customers reminded him there was always someone to throw a wrench in the plans. 

"Welcome to the Comic Center of Pasadena, under new ownership," Stuart tried to sound upbeat.

"Oh, hi, I'm Leonard. This is Sheldon," the shorter man said. "I just moved here last month."

"What happened to Karl?" The taller man may as well have been stomping his foot, "Why are the walls green?"

"Karl moved to Mexico, and the walls are green because I like it. I've still got all the same inventory for now, but I'm really excited to hear what people are interested in that the store hasn't carried before—"

"Oh no," Sheldon twitched.

"Um?" Stuart cast a side eyed glance to Leonard. He wondered what the deal was here. Leonard sort of shrugged.

"Leonard, I don't like these changes. I'll be waiting outside." 

Leonard and Stuart looked at each other. "I have no idea," Leonard preemptively started. "I just moved in last week after couch surfing with friends for a month, and part of my roommate duties are to drive him around. I think I'm going to keep looking."

Stuart nodded. "I just moved to Pasadena myself, I got a studio in Altadena to avoid roommates." 

"That was probably a very smart idea. Where are you from?"

"All over, I guess. Most recently Oakland. You?"

"New Jersey. Princenton."

Knock knock knock.

The both looked over and saw Sheldon impatiently tapping on the glass.

"I think I'm being summoned."

"Good luck with that."

"Yeah. Thanks. Good luck with the store."


End file.
